After handing over both the CEO and chairman reins at the company now known as Allergan (NYSE:AGN), longtime generics chief, Paul Bisaro, is taking the helm at Impax Laboratories, Inc. (NASDAQ:IPXL).

Written by Carly Helfand

Bisaro will step in immediately for interim skipper J. Kevin Buchi, who took over in December after Fred Wilkinson stepped down, Impax said in a Monday statement.

Bisaro is taking on a company that's standing at a crossroads, with shares trading at levels not seen since 2010, generic competition stepping up and pricing on the downswing. And investors cheered his appointment: the stock had vaulted 37% in after hours trading

Bisaro, who continues to serve on Allergan’s board of directors, only recently vacated the chairman’s spot at the company he helped build. His October step-aside capped the Dublin drugmaker’s transition to a brands-only company, an initiative carried out by Bisaro’s CEO successor, Brent Saunders. 

A little M&A is exactly what Impax may need right now... It’s a path that many of its generics peers have taken lately to boost their bargaining leverage and cut costs in the face of waning pricing power.

• Industry leader Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd. (NYSE:TEVA), for one, has followed that approach, taking the Actavis generics unit off Allergan’s hands for $40.5 billion.
• Fellow giant Sandoz, a division of Novartis (NYSE:NVS), reportedly was eying a deal for Amneal last year and
• Mylan N. V. (NASDAQ:MYL), the last major player in the copycat trifecta, last year bulked up with a $5.7 billion deal for the ex-U.S. generics business of Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT).