Allergan Exec to Lobby in Washington : Politics: Firm’s founder will give up daily operations, work to protect the future of the pharmaceuticals industry.

Gavin S. Herbert, who founded Allergan Inc. with his father more than four decades ago, will retire from day-to-day operations of the giant eye- and skin-care products maker to concentrate on lobbying for the pharmaceuticals industry, the company said Wednesday.

Herbert, 61, will stay on as chairman, Allergan spokesman Richard J. Hilles said. But as of April 1, he will no longer be an employee of the company and will hand over its operation to Chief Executive William C. Shepherd, Hilles said.

Herbert will then spend much of his time in Washington working in “governmental affairs” to protect the pharmaceutical industry’s future while a national health-care package is hammered out--a move that health-care analysts praised as good for both Irvine-based Allergan and the drug industry.

“It makes a lot of sense,” said Neil B. Sweig, a health-care industry analyst at the brokerage Ladenburg, Thalman & Co. in New York. “He is a very wealthy man, and possibly this will free him for his external interest in politics.”

Herbert, who helped found Allergan in 1948 with a single drugstore in Los Angeles, now draws an annual salary of about $400,000. With bonuses and other executive compensation, he earned about $1.7 million for 1992. His pension will be about $257,000 a year, according to company documents.

He will also remain a director of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Assn., an influential industry lobbying group in Washington; and a director of Fullerton-based Beckman Instruments Inc., a maker of diagnostic medical laboratory equipment. Allergan and Beckman are both Fortune 500 corporations.

Sweig said that Herbert has long been known in the industry to have an interest in politics. It was rumored years ago that he might run for statewide office. That never materialized, Sweig said, but Herbert’s involvement in legislative issues could put him in the public eye--and possibly political office.

“It appears he has made a decision to add other things to his personal life,” Sweig said.

Jennifer LaVin, an analyst with Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York, said that Herbert’s resignation from the company could ultimately help it. His reduced management role does not signal a change in the company’s strategy to make itself more competitive in the future by trimming personnel and product lines, she said.

Like other drug manufacturers, Allergan has been shaken by the topsy-turvy pharmaceutical industry, which faces price caps and has been criticized by President Clinton. And despite annual revenue of nearly $900 million, Allergan faces uncertainty as the nation seeks to reform its health-care system.

To ensure that it remains competitive, Allergan in the past year has been restructuring. It has laid off about 100 workers and has sold off parts of its operations, including its international contact-lens business to a British firm in August and its North and South American contact-lens businesses a year ago.

LaVin said that the restructuring appears to be completed, however, and predicted that Herbert’s new focus will benefit Allergan.

“His leadership will be missed by the company,” LaVin said. “But we have full confidence in management’s ability. It really doesn’t affect our opinion of the company.”

Allergan’s Hilles said that Herbert’s retirement is unrelated to the corporate restructuring. His April retirement will be the culmination of a planned transfer of responsibility to other executives, he said. Herbert, who served as chief executive from 1961 to 1991, turned that post over to Shepherd in January, 1992.

After his retirement, Herbert will keep an office at the company’s Irvine headquarters and will be “working here three days a week,” Hilles said.

“He has all the credentials of being a senior statesman for the industry,” Hilles said.