ICN Chief Milan Panic Resigns

Milan Panic, the man who said he was “born to fight” even when it wasn’t a good idea, chose not to Wednesday, announcing that he would step down as chairman and chief executive of ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., the company he began in Los Angeles 42 years ago.

Panic’s decision, made just 15 days after dissident shareholders took control of the ICN board of directors, marks the end of a successful but controversial stewardship that saw the firm grow from a $200 stake and a converted washing machine into a global, research-based pharmaceutical business.

“There are better things in life to do than to fight, and I am 72. It’s time for me to consider doing something else,” Panic said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “If it helps the company, then I will do well [as a shareholder] and my grandchildren will do well.”

Just how well the Costa Mesa-based company will do without Panic at the helm is uncertain. Many analysts had predicted that ICN stock would rise once Panic’s control over the company had ended, because ICN’s past was as colored by Panic’s problems as anything else, they said.

Most recently Panic had endured growing shareholder anger over the lack of speed in building the company’s share price. Some shareholders said he didn’t move fast enough in executing his plan to break the company up into three entities. Panic also drew fire when he accepted a $33.1-million bonus for managing the spinoff of Ribapharm Inc.

Panic had also made enemies among federal regulators. In 1998, Securities and Exchange Commission officials sought to have Panic ousted in connection with alleged trading violations involving ICN stock. The Food and Drug Administration recently reprimanded ICN and other pharmaceutical companies for misleading consumers and doctors in promoting their drugs.

And in December, ICN agreed to plead guilty to securities fraud for misleading investors about its successful hepatitis C drug ribavirin, agreeing to pay a $5.6-million fine.

Panic, a flamboyant multimillionaire who was born in Belgrade, has had a career of intrigue and controversy.

As a teenager during World War II, he was a member of the Yugoslav resistance fighting Nazi occupation. Ten years later he defected from the new Communist regime, moving his family to New York.

Panic launched his company from a Los Angeles garage in 1959. Its first product was commercialized DNA, which paved the way for later antiviral drugs from ICN.

In July 1992, Panic, a U.S. citizen, took leave from ICN and was elected prime minister of Yugoslavia. He withstood two votes of no confidence by the Belgrade legislature as he advocated for peace in the region, but lost a power struggle for the presidency to Slobodan Milosevic, who quickly pushed him from office.

In the United States, Panic’s business and personal life have been only slightly less turbulent.

In the 1990s, he settled at least four sexual harassment suits, in one case paying $3.5 million to ICN’s former director of employee relations, Debra Levy. Last year a court ordered Panic to pay child support to Levy after DNA tests confirmed he was the father of her 14-year-old son.

If shareholders were expecting a leap in ICN stock from Panic’s departure, that has not happened. On the New York Stock Exchange, ICN finished up 27 cents Wednesday to $24.88, still below the $27.80 price on the day of the ICN shareholders vote.

Other analysts cautioned against high expectations.

“The pharmaceutical industry is out of favor right now,” said Standard & Poor’s Corp. analyst Herman Saftlas. ICN has “spun off Ribapharm, and what’s left in their product pipeline is relatively mundane and they will have competition in the hepatitis C market in the coming months.”

Panic said that he would advise the ICN on matters, but “only if they want me to. I want to make this clear. I am out,” he said, even though he will remain on the company’s board of directors.

Panic said that he wants to work in the field of human rights and said that he has been asked to assist the president of Yugoslavia.

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Times wire services contributed to this report.