Ex-CEO And Chairman Of Allergan, Paul Bisaro, Is Taking The Helm At Impax Laboratories Inc

 After handing over both the CEO and chairman reins at the company now known as Allergan (NYSE:AGN), longtime generics chief, Paul Bisaro, is taking the helm at Impax Laboratories, Inc. (NASDAQ:IPXL).

Written by Carly Helfand

Bisaro will step in immediately for interim skipper J. Kevin Buchi, who took over in December after Fred Wilkinson stepped down, Impax said in a Monday statement.

Bisaro is taking on a company that's standing at a crossroads, with shares trading at levels not seen since 2010, generic competition stepping up and pricing on the downswing. And investors cheered his appointment: the stock had vaulted 37% in after hours trading

Bisaro, who continues to serve on Allergan’s board of directors, only recently vacated the chairman’s spot at the company he helped build. His October step-aside capped the Dublin drugmaker’s transition to a brands-only company, an initiative carried out by Bisaro’s CEO successor, Brent Saunders. 

A little M&A is exactly what Impax may need right now... It’s a path that many of its generics peers have taken lately to boost their bargaining leverage and cut costs in the face of waning pricing power.

• Industry leader Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd. (NYSE:TEVA), for one, has followed that approach, taking the Actavis generics unit off Allergan’s hands for $40.5 billion.
• Fellow giant Sandoz, a division of Novartis (NYSE:NVS), reportedly was eying a deal for Amneal last year and
• Mylan N. V. (NASDAQ:MYL), the last major player in the copycat trifecta, last year bulked up with a $5.7 billion deal for the ex-U.S. generics business of Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT).