On Thursday, Starboard value LP, a major shareholder of Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE), has sent a letter to the company’s Board of Directors.
Starboard Value said it had scheduled a meeting on October 16 with CEO Albert Bourla, Shantanu Narayen and possibly other members of the Board of Directors. They plan to share their perspectives and discuss Pfizer’s future direction.
Also read: Former Pfizer executives Ian Read and Frank D’Amelio support Albert Bourla’s leadership amid starboard activism: ‘Will deliver shareholder value.’
The letter highlights recent press reports that Starboard has contacted the company’s former CEO, Ian Read, and former CFO, Frank D’Amelio, as part of their due diligence process.
Both Mr Read and Mr D’Amelio expressed concern about Pfizer’s current trajectory. As former executives and key individual shareholders with a deep understanding of Pfizer’s stakeholders, they conveyed a shared desire for the company to follow a more promising path and offered assistance.
The letter states that interaction with the former executives is limited to this, which is in line with publicly available information.
The letter adds that individuals within Pfizer or their representatives have reportedly contacted Mr Read and Mr D’Amelio, threatening legal action, the clawback of previous compensation and the cancellation of unvested performance shares unless they publicly support the current CEO.
The shareholder urges the Board of Directors to establish a special committee of impartial members to investigate the matter, determine who authorized such actions and hold the responsible parties accountable.
At the same time, Pfizer released topline results from the final, pre-specified overall survival (OS) analysis of the TALAPRO-2 trial of Talzenna (talazoparib) in combination with Xtandi (enzalutamide) in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).
Results showed a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in ultimate OS in all entrants (cohort 1) and in patients with homologous recombination repair (HRR) gene-mutated mCRPC (cohort 2) compared to Xtandi alone.
At the time of final analysis, clinically meaningful improvement in radiographic progression-free survival (rPFS) was maintained in both cohorts compared to the previous primary analysis previously reported and published in The Lancet.
The FDA approved Talzenna in combination with Xtandi in June 2023 for adult patients with HRR gene-mutated mCRPC.
The European Commission also approved the combination in January 2024 for adult patients with mCRPC for whom chemotherapy is not clinically indicated.
Price promotion: PFE stock was down 1.47% to $29.75 at last check on Thursday.
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