In the middle of a 1995 Sepracor Inc. board meeting, CEO Tim Barberich took a phone call from the chief marketing executive at a major drug firm. “The deal [for Sepracor's improved version of albuterol, levalbuterol] is in the bag,” Barberich says he was told. Sepracor directors began to celebrate. “It was a $100 million deal just as we were ready to go into a financing,” says Barberich. “We were practically dancing on the table.”
The celebration was short-lived. Apparently at the drug firm's next executive committee meeting, the head of R&D told the company's...