Elan's Pennsylvania Lawyer Once Again Makes News

(MoneyWatch)  The pressure on Elan Pharmaceuticals CEO Kelly Martin to resign is increasing. Crabtree Partners, an investment company, sent a letter to Elan's board calling for the termination of Martin. But an interesting side-note in this soap opera is the history of Elan's general counsel, Richard Collier.

Crabtree is bewildered that Elan's management are separated in different offices on different continents. Says Reuters:

The biotech company is spread across three continents, and its management is equally far flung. Chief Executive Kelly Martin is based in a small office in New York. Its chief financial officer is based in Ireland, research and corporate communications functions are based in San Francisco, and its general counsel is in Pennsylvania.

That "general counsel ... in Pennsylvania" is Collier. Before Elan, Collier was general counsel at Pharmacia, until the time Pharmacia was acquired by Pfizer. BNET readers with very sharp memories already know that acquisition was a farce, leading to a criminal investigation of the Pharmacia human growth hormone franchise. Ultimately, Pfizer, as the successor company, was convicted of illegal sales of Genotropin, its HGH brand, and paid a big fine. The litigation also gave an ongoing soapbox to Peter Rost. But why was Pharmacia selling HGH in violation of federal criminal law in the first place? It's because Pharmacia's outside counsel, Morgan Lewis & Bockius, advised the company that it was OK to do so, in an infamous memo that failed to mention the specifc law that actually controls HGH sales.

Collier, in addition to being the client who received that advice, and failing to prevent the company from selling the drug for overtly off-label uses, went to work at Morgan Lewis after he left Pharmacia, before eventually joining Elan. What a small world it is!