BIOGEN IDEC, the US partner of Irish drug company Elan, faces a turbulent annual meeting today as activist investor Carl Icahn seeks to impose a team of directors.

Mr Icahn, who owns about 4 per cent of Biogen stock, has proposed three names to oppose Biogen directors standing for re-election as he continues his pursuit of one of the world’s biggest and oldest biotechnology companies.

The billionaire investor hopes to unlock value in the group through a sale. Biogen is likely to see off the corporate raider with the help of support for its position from three separate proxy advice companies and a strong performance by its shares in recent years.

Biogen tried and failed last year to sell itself. Mr Icahn, who urged the sale, claims Biogen deliberately sabotaged it.

Biogen and Elan are partners in the MS drug Tysabri, which hopes to take up to a quarter share in the MS market by 2010.

Elan shares jumped another 10 per cent in early Dublin trade yesterday as investors welcomed positive news from the company’s Alzheimer’s venture with Wyeth. They later gave up some of those gains, but still closed more than 5 per cent ahead.

Analysts in Dublin raised their projections for the company on the basis of “increased confidence in the development prospects and commercial potential” for the drug bapineuzumab or AAB-001.

“We have increased our probability of success for AAB-001 to 75 per cent,” wrote NCB analysts Páraic Quinn and Orla Hartford.

NCB sees “potential for further upside to our valuation range following the release next month of the full phase II data [for AAB-001]”. Company broker Davy said the results were “better than our expectations”. – (Additional reporting Reuters)