About Us
We are a development stage company with expertise in recombinant protein drug development. Our corporate office is located in Richmond, Virginia.
On February 12, 2009 we announced that we had entered into a definitive agreement with Merck & Co., Inc. whereby Merck, through an affiliate, would purchase all assets related to our follow-on biologics platform. On March 31, 2009, we completed the sale of these assets for an aggregate purchase price of $130 million. After fees, taxes and other costs related to the transaction, we expect net proceeds of approximately $123 million as a result of this transaction.
As part of this transaction, Merck assumed the lease of our Boulder, Colorado-based manufacturing facility and acquired ownership of all the equipment in the building. In addition, upon closing of the transaction, Merck offered positions to employees of the Boulder facility. We retain our Richmond, VA corporate office, which houses our Clinical, Regulatory, Finance, and Administrative functions, in support of the continuing IPLEX™ program. Following the sale of our follow-on biologics assets, we plan to continue to support our proprietary protein platform and our product, the FDA-approved IPLEX™, which is in various stages of development for a number of serious medical conditions including Myotonic muscular Dystrophy ("MMD"), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis ("ALS"), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and Retinopathy of Prematurity ("ROP").
We have also engaged the services of RBC to act as financial advisor in evaluating other options for use of the proceeds from the follow-on biologics asset sale which could include acquisitions of complimentary businesses or technologies, product licensing, mergers, share repurchase and the distribution of a portion of the proceeds to shareholders.
Focusing on Markets with Unmet Needs
Some of the biggest advances in science over the last century have occurred in the development of pharmaceuticals. Diseases which once terrified millions upon millions of people in the world have been held in check or in some cases completely eradicated because of the great work of some of the world's pharmaceutical corporations.
