http://business.bostonherald.com/bus...rticleid=59285
Biopure faces Nasdaq delisting
By
John Strahinich
Friday, December 17, 2004
Cambridge's Biopure Corp. has been booted from the Nasdaq biotechnology index - the latest indignity in a litany of bad news that has left the would-be blood-substitute developer seeking a miracle before it bleeds out this July.
That's when the company expects to run out of money from its latest transfusion announced earlier this week - some $10.5 million from a recent stock offering.
To date, Biopure has spent nearly $500 million trying to win the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its blood substitute, called Hemopure. Now the firm is changing tack, trying to win FDA approval for Hemopure as a treatment for cardiac patients.
Biopure is hoping to get the drug deep enough through the regulatory pipeline to attract a corporate suitor.
``We're looking for partners or corporate collaborators to share the costs of development,'' company spokeman Douglas Sayles said.
But Sayles admitted this last offering has diluted Biopure's already watery stock by adding 40 million more shares and offering warrants for another 20 million.
That's not likely to get it back in the good graces of the Nasdaq, which is threatening to delist the company's stock by summer.
Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission is still investigating whether Biopure failed to inform investors about safety concerns raised by the FDA during clinical trials.
Biopure is no longer watched by stock analysts. But its latest stock prospectus included 11 single-spaced pages listing all the factors that could eventually undo the company, beginning with this statement:
``We have a history of losses and expect future losses.''
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