Here’s a cautionary tale for biotech execs:

Last night, Tom McLain left as ceo, prez and chairman of Nabi Biopharmaceuticals unexpectedly. This came three months after a reported truce with Dan Loeb, who heads Third Point LLC, a New York-based fund, that held 9.5 percent of Nabi stock at the time. Loeb had criticized McLain for using cash reserves too quickly and failing to bring key drugs in the pipeline to market, according to The South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

At one point, Nabi was a high flyer, but investor hopes were dashed when a potential blockbuster vaccine for staphylococcus infections repeatedly failed to meet targets. More recently, Nabi was focusing on an anti-smoking vaccine, but this is stll nascent. All this proved too much for the board, which named one of its own as interim ceo. (You can read the press release here).

Interestingly, this episode occurs just a few days after The New York Times ran a lengthy story about biotechs defying financial gravity and remaining open for business no matter how much cash they use. “It’s sort of baffling in a way, an industry that stays afloat, sort of defying the laws of economic gravity,” Gary Pisano, a Harvard Business School professor opined. “After 20 years or 15 years, you kind of would expect companies to be profitable or be gone. You just kind of wonder: Is this an efficient way for industry to operate?”

No, it’s not. And it apparently doesn’t do much for job security, either.

[tags]Nabi Biopharmaceuticals[/tags]