On June 14, 2006, Graham Allaway received a shocking call in his office. His boss, Samuel "Skip" Ackerman, had just walked off the stage at an investors' conference in New York City and suffered an apparent heart attack. Within hours, Ackerman, the energetic chief executive officer of Panacos Pharmaceuticals, would be dead. Allaway, the company's chief operating officer, found himself staring down a crisis.
For Allaway and Panacos - a Watertown, Mass.-based drug development company focused on bringing a novel HIV compound to market - adversity was hardly anything new. In recent years at Panacos, Allaway had been forced to abandon a promising drug candidate, much to the surprise of his board. He had been demoted from CEO to make room for Ackerman.
Now, with Ackerman dead, Allaway watched the company's stock prices fall, but colleagues say the thoughtful, deliberate Englishman never panicked, and now, with Panacos looking to begin ...
