In the wake of Nymox Pharmaceutical’s shares being kicked off the Nasdaq, the embattled biotech is now facing a mutiny led by former executives unhappy that the company turned down a deal with AscellaHealth.
The catalyst for the company’s troubles was Nasdaq’s decision to delist Nymox’s stock on Friday, after the Irvine, California-based biotech failed to get its shares back above the minimum $1 price in the six-month window of reprieve granted by the stock market.
The promise of anticipated European approvals for its Nymozarfex therapy to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia—which causes an enlarged prostate gland—wasn’t enough to entice back investors who had fled after the FDA’s refusal last year to consider an approval application for the drug.
Sunday, a group dubbed The Committee to Restore Nymox Shareholder Value, led by the company’s former chief financial officer, unveiled itself and hit out at the failure of the biotech to go ahead with a proposed partnership with pharmaceutical solutions provider AscellaHealth. The group argued the deal would have provided the company with much-needed revenue while it awaits a hoped-for approval of Nymozarfex by Dutch health authorities.
The group posted a lengthy letter by Christopher Riley, who was let go as CFO of Nymox in June after just four months in the role. In the letter, Riley set out his side of the story, including his work to set up what he described as the “company-saving deal” with AscellaHealth.
The other letter posted by the group was written by Randall Lanham, a former director and executive officer for Nymox. Like Riley, Lanham was involved in setting up what he described as an “exceptional” deal with AscellaHealth that he argued could have boosted the biotech’s flagging share price and commercialization ambition.
In its own response Friday, Nymox alluded to the letters as well as explaining that two employees had proposed a “potential transaction” that the biotech had “determined … was not in the best interests of the company or its shareholders.”
The company warned that the letters could contain confidential information and asked for anyone who received the letters to destroy them.