Activist investor Starboard Value takes $1 billion in Pfizer, sources say

(Reuters) – Activist investor Starboard Value has taken a roughly $1 billion stake in Pfizer and wants the U.S. drug giant to make changes to turn around its performance, sources familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

Starboard also approached Ian Read, a former Pfizer CEO, and Frank D’Amelio, who served as CFO until 2021, and both expressed interest in helping the activist investor, the sources said.

Read served as CEO until Albert Bourla took over in 2019. Bourla was instrumental in collaborating with BioNTech to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.

Pfizer declined to comment and Starboard did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Investors chastised the company as it navigated much lower sales of its COVID vaccines and drugs, a weaker-than-hoped-for launch of its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine and disappointing clinical data for an obesity pill it was developing .

The company’s share price fell to $28.58 on Friday from about $41.00 in 2019 when Bourla took control.

While the company quickly developed the vaccine during the pandemic, its fortunes have faded since the world returned to normal.

Bourla has also invested significantly in acquisitions, spending about $70 billion as of 2020. It bought Seagen for $43 billion, Biohaven for $13 billion, Arena for $6 billion, Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT) for $5 billion and Trillium for $2 billion.

Some investors criticized the blowout and expressed concern about GBT in particular, where the main sickle cell disease drug had to be pulled from the market and trials halted due to adverse side effects.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the news of the Starboard stake.

The investment firm has previously pushed for changes at News Corp, Salesforce and Match Group.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss in New York and Surbhi Misra in Bengaluru; Editing by Tom Hogue and Jacqueline Wong)