It pays to have David Pyott on your board.
That lesson was made clear—again—this week with news that the former Allergan CEO helped to arrange a lucrative deal for Irvine biopharmaceutical firm Bioniz Therapeutics to sell one of its drug candidates to Spain’s Almirall S.A.
Reports out of Europe described the arrangement as one that’ll lead to an outright acquisition likely to run $62 million or so with earnouts, but CEO Nazli Azimi said those reports mischaracterized and undervalued the deal: the sale is for just one of Bioniz’s drug candidates, and the deal could end up being worth $500M or more, she told our Peter J. Brennan.
Pyott, who along with Masimo’s Joe Kiani sits on Bioniz’s board, made the connection with Almirall, Azimi said; the Spanish firm bought a dermatology division of Allergan in 2018, see our front-page story for more.
Pyott of course helped Allergan fend off Valeant and Bill Ackman’s hostile takeover six years ago, leading to the then Irvine-based firm’s $66 billion sale to Actavis in 2015. He left following the deal.
The Bioniz news comes the same week that the soon-to-be new owner of Allergan, AbbVie of Chicago, plans to consolidate OC operations with Irvine becoming the base for its new Allergan Aesthetics subsidiary.
See next week’s edition for more; OCTANe’s Aesthetics Technology Summit was being held as the Business Journal went to press, and included many of OC’s, and the country’s, top execs.
A notable week for Masimo’s Kiani and his wife, Sarah, too. The longtime backers of Joe Biden hosted a reception for the former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate at their Irvine home on Jan. 9. Other attendees listed on the invitation included Barbara Boxer, Lou Correa, Harley Rouda and other Masimo execs.
“We need a leader that will bring peace and justice to our nation and the world immediately,” Kiani said via Twitter last week, highlighting a recent Biden foreign policy speech.
Pyott’s also been part of the executive committee of an organization you’ll be hearing much more of in 2020: the CEO Leadership Alliance of Orange County (CLA-OC), a group designed to “build both a competitive ecosystem and higher quality of life.”
See this week’s Leader Board (page 85) for thoughts from Edwards Lifesciences CEO Mike Mussallem and CLA-OC Chairman Doug Wilson on the group’s goals.
CLA-OC’s executive committee currently includes Emile Haddad, FivePoint; Kim Kovacs, Arroyo Ventures; Steve Milligan, Western Digital; Alain Monié, Ingram Micro; Manny Roman, PIMCO; Stephen Thorne, Pacific Dental Services; Brett Wall, Medtronic; and Anduril Industries’ Palmer Luckey, among others.
Last week’s Insider noted the boat, helicopter and submarine collection of Luckey.
Also a collector of pricey vehicles: Manny Khoshbin, whose Irvine real estate firm just sold off a prominent collection of properties along Mariner’s Mile for $40M, see this page for more.
Khoshbin has an Instagram account dedicated solely to his collection of sports cars, and year-end reports noted he was taking possession of a “Chiron Hermes Edition” Bugatti he had helped design. Some put its estimated value near $5M.
Khoshbin has a new local coworking business, too. It’s called Driven Workspaces.
