DR WILSON Totten, the former chief executive of Borders-based specialist pharmaceutical firm ProStrakan who quit last year amid a major bout of bad news at the company, was given a golden goodbye worth £341,000, The Herald can reveal.
Dr Totten, a former general practitioner, joined ProStrakan in 2004 but resigned last September after news of delays in two of its key products, Sancuso and Abstral.
ProStrakan has since been acquired by Japan’s Kyowa Hakko Kirin but, back in September, news of the doctor’s departure wiped more than £50 million off its stock market worth.
According to ProStrakan’s latest annual report, obtained by The Herald from Companies House, Dr Totten was paid a total of £587,000 for the eight months he was employed during 2010 – including £341,000 for “compensation for loss of office”, and a £20,000 company pension contribution – compared with £527,000 the year before.
Writing in the annual report, Peter Allen, who took on the role of acting chief executive after Dr Totten’s departure, said: “Pro-Strakan’s acquisition by KHK marks a new chapter in the ProStrakan story, which I believe will be beneficial to all concerned – staff and shareholders alike.”
Dr Totten also snapped up a windfall worth some £820,000 from offloading his stakeholding amid ProStrakan’s all-cash £292m sale to KHK in February.
A spokesman for ProStrakan yesterday said the company had “no comment” on Mr Totten’s package.
Just after the departure, Mr Allen was asked if Dr Totten had resigned of his own volition or had been asked to leave. “It was a mutual decision,” he said. “He and the board had a chat about it.”
Mr Allen added: “Wilson has been with ProStrakan for six years and had a very successful career with the company.
“However, over the past nine months, the news flow has been negative. Confidence was ebbing.”
In the company’s annual report, he said: “On behalf of the board I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the significant role that he (Dr Totten) has played in the development of ProStrakan.”
ProStrakan, which has headquarters in Galashiels and employs around 70 of its 300 staff in Scotland, had for several years been touted as one of Scotland’s most promising young pharmaceutical firms, particularly after its recent drive into the lucrative US market – in spite of the now-resolved temporary setbacks.
However, back in September, Dr Totten’s surprise departure came as one component in a triple dose of bad news for the company.
At the same time, ProStrakan had warned that the US manufacture of Sancuso, its novel skin-patch treatment that prevents chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, had been halted after a factory inspection by the Food and Drug Administration.
In a third strike, US approval for Abstral, its fast-dissolving tablet for treating cancer pain, had also been delayed.
A spokesman for ProStrakan said: “Those issues have now been resolved. Sancuso is back on the US market and Abstral was launched successfully in the US.”
Tokyo-based KHK, which is a unit of Japanese beer giant Kirin Holdings that focuses on oncology and urology, acquired ProStrakan to help expand its cancer drug business outside Japan. It has said it regarded the acquisition as a key strategic milestone, which would give it an established European and US marketing and sales platform.
Meanwhile, ProStrakan’s final annual report also reveals that in the year that preceded the take-over, total boardroom pay swelled to £1.2m, compared with £806,000 the year before.
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