La Jolla Pharmaceutical is trying hard to get its investors' attention. In order to complete a proposed merger with Adamis Pharmaceuticals, it has to get an endorsement from the holders of at least half of the company's 65 million shares--which are currently trading in the low-rent neighborhood of 12 cents a share. But a story in the San Diego Daily Transcript notes that low turnout in its most recent vote left the troubled biotech company on the threshold of dissolving.
So to get shareholder's attention, La Jolla is calling an "urgent" special meeting to get some votes cast. La Jolla has talked about dissolving before. The developer shelved its lupus drug Riquent in February 2009 after a late-stage failure wiped out 82 percent of its share value.
"This merger provides potential upside for La Jolla's stockholders as Adamis has current and anticipated future revenues from its recently launched epinephrine syringe and additional products in the pipeline," says La Jolla CEO Deirdre Gillespie. "To close this deal, La Jolla's unusually large base of 12,000 stockholders need to act and vote--every vote is critical. The likely alternative to the merger is to close the Company, in which case we currently expect returning $0.02 - $0.03 per share to stockholders."
- check out the press release
- here's the Daily Transcript story