SAN FRANCISCO – Richard Pops was hardly a new face when he took the podium last week at the 33rd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. Minus a two-year absence that's not even mentioned in his company bio, Pops has been at the helm of Alkermes plc since 1991, when – fresh from an assignment managing biotech R&D partnering at Painewebber Development Corp. – he was quickly hailed as something of a biotech wunderkind.