Icahn gives up seat on Illumina board, backing away from challenge to diagnostics company

Af­ter up­end­ing Il­lu­mi­na’s lead­er­ship, ac­tivist in­vestor Carl Ic­ahn ap­pears to be back­ing off.

Ac­cord­ing to a proxy fil­ing Thurs­day, Ic­ahn’s di­rec­tor on Il­lu­mi­na’s board won’t stand for re-elec­tion, and Ic­ahn hasn’t nom­i­nat­ed a new al­ly to re­place him, or oth­ers.

While there’s no in­di­ca­tion that Ic­ahn has sold the stake he bought in the ge­net­ic se­quenc­ing com­pa­ny, giv­ing up the di­rec­tor seat — oc­cu­pied by An­drew Teno, now the CEO of Ic­ahn En­ter­pris­es — marks a no­table re­treat af­ter a pro­tract­ed and of­ten vi­cious proxy bat­tle that last year led to the ex­it of Il­lu­mi­na’s CEO.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.