Directors Juggle Places on ICN, Subsidiary Boards

In a series of moves resembling a game of musical chairs, directors of ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Costa Mesa and one of its subsidiaries have vacated their board seats to become directors of sister firms.

Nobel Prize-winner Roger Guillemin has left the board of ICN Biomedicals Inc. to assume a seat on the board of SPI Pharmaceuticals Inc., while financial consultant Tom Lenagh has been elected to take Guillemin’s place at ICN Biomedicals and will give up his seat on the board of ICN Pharmaceuticals.

A spokesman for ICN Pharmaceuticals said that shifting of directors among the ICN family of companies is unusual, but it has been done in the past. “It allows us to strengthen the expertise represented on each board,” spokesman Jack Sholl said.

Lenagh, an independent financial adviser, was treasurer of the Ford Foundation from 1964 to 1978. He has served as a director of ICN Pharmaceuticals since 1979.

Guillemin, a winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine for his research into human hormones and their effect on growth, reproduction and other functions, will bring added scientific strength to SPI’s board, Sholl said.

Guillemin had been an ICN Biomedical director since 1987. He is chairman of the Laboratories for Neuroendocrinology at the Salk Institute in La Jolla and an adjunct professor of medicine at the Medical School of UC San Diego.

The changes leave ICN Pharmaceuticals with one vacancy on its seven-member board.