Monday, July 21, 2008

Nasdaq warns GTC Biotherapeutics again

By Mass High Tech Staff

GTC Biotherapeutics Inc. reports it has received yet another notice from the Nasdaq Global Market that the biotech firm’s stock doesn’t comply with listing requirements.
 
Framingham-based GTC (Nasdaq: GTCB) reported that the notice said the company’s common stock, which trades on the Nasdaq Global Market, fails to meet the Nasdaq’s $1 minimum bid rule. The firm intends to request a hearing with a Nasdaq panel to maintain its listing and stay any action by Nasdaq to remove the stock from the exchange.

Nasdaq staff first alerted the company on Jan. 17, 2008 that its stock failed to meet the minimum bid price of $1 per share. According to the company, the notice said the firm had until July 15 to raise its stock price but failed to do so.

In June, GTC Biotherapeutics announced that it had entered into a development and marketing agreement with Ovation Pharmaceuticals Inc. potentially worth up to $275 million to develop and market GTC’s anticoagulant and anti-inflammatory product ATryn in the United States.

That same month, the company also announced its exclusive license offer to Pharming Group NV for its recombinant fibrinogen in Europe, North America and Japan. Under terms of the license agreement, GTC Biotherapeutics is entitled to an initial $550,000 payment, as well as commercial sales royalties,

GTC, which supplies and develops protein therapies produced in the milk of transgenic animals, employs 156 workers and reported a 2007 net loss of $36.3 million on revenue of $13.9 million.