Seattle-based Cell Therapeutics Inc. has had its share of stumbles, but it has seemed especially dogged by trouble the past week or two. Consider:
* Last week, the company revealed it has reached an oral agreement to pay $10.5 million to settle a federal investigation into the marketing of its leukemia drug, Trisenox (http://www.columbian.com/news/APStories/AP01242007news96460.cfm).
* On Tuesday, CTI said it will refile three quarterly reports from 2006 that overstated company expenses by about $2 million to $3 million (http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8MVMMVG0.htm or http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4510702.html). This actually looks good for the bottom line, but it’s nonetheless embarassing to restate financials because they were potentially inaccurate the first time.
* On Wednesday, in some of the weirdest twists I’ve seen with a local biotech firm, CTI said it may remove its stock from the Italian stock exchange because the vast majority of Italian shareholders have failed to vote their shares at annual meetings. This is a big problem, as more than half of CT’s shares are held by Italian shareholders. So, without a voting quorum at its meetings, it’s has been unable to go on with routine corporate business (http://www.pharmalive.com/News/index.cfm?articleid=410872&categoryid=36%2C61).
It turns out the CTI got into the Italy after it bought Milan-based Novuspharma in early 2004. With about 144 million shares outstanding, it would now like to issue more shares to raise money.
Founded in 1991, CTI employs about 140 people in Seattle in its pursuit of new cancer drugs. For more on the company, look here, http://www.celltherapeutics.com. To learn more about the company’s stock — mired below $2 a share — and financials, try this: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=CTIC.
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