"Credit David Mott with helping send MedImmune to the top tier of today’s biotechnology companies. In 1992,Mott left a job as a Wall Street investment banker to oversee business development at MedImmune. But the enterprising Gaithersburg, Md., company hit hard times when a flawed drug study prompted the Food and Drug Administration to nix approval for RespiGam, a first-of-its-kind treatment to prevent respiratory infections in newborns.
Investors drove MedImmune’s stock to an all-time low of $2 per share. Then Mott stepped in, assuming responsibility to get the drug back on track.
RespiGam won approval in January 1996.By then Mott had risen to become president and chief operating officer, leading the young company’s successful market launch of its first product. Growing sales have driven the firm’s stock price over $100.
Merrill Lynch biotech analyst Eric Hecht says, ""David is probably the most adept young executive I’ve ever met, and moves the ball from A to B better and faster and with more energy than anyone.""
Thanks to driven leaders like Mott, MedImmune’s other research programs, including a vaccine against urinary tract infections, stand a better chance of making it to market."