BOCA RATON, Fla., July 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Nabi Biopharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: NABI - News) today announced that it has created the second of its two planned strategic business units (SBU), Nabi Pharmaceuticals. Nabi Pharmaceuticals is responsible for the NicVAX® (Nicotine Conjugate Vaccine) and StaphVAX® (Staphylococcus aureus Polysaccharide Conjugate Vaccine) development programs, as well as for the continuing milestone-related development obligations following the sale of PhosLo® (calcium acetate).
In connection with the reorganization required to support the business strategy of the new SBU, the company eliminated 33 positions in its Rockville, Maryland research and development facility. This reduction - approximately 5 percent of the company’s total current workforce - is expected to yield approximately $3.3 million in savings on an annualized basis.
“The creation of Nabi Pharmaceuticals is another critical step forward for Nabi as we get closer to successfully concluding our strategic alternatives process, supported by Banc of America Securities, and securing a partner for our NicVAX and StaphVAX programs,” said Dr. Leslie Hudson, Interim President and Chief Executive Officer of Nabi Biopharmaceuticals. “We also recently brought on Dr. Matthew W. Kalnik to drive our Nabi Pharmaceuticals partnership discussions. These and other actions recently taken by the company are designed to facilitate our strategic alternatives and partnership processes and maximize the value of Nabi and our pipeline.”
The company announced last month that it had created the Nabi Biologics SBU, as well as a Corporate Shared Services group to support these business units.
About Nabi Biopharmaceuticals
Nabi Biopharmaceuticals leverages its experience and knowledge in powering the immune system to develop and market products that fight serious medical conditions. The company has one product on the market today: Nabi-HB® [Hepatitis B Immune Globulin (Human)]. Nabi Biopharmaceuticals is focused on developing products that address unmet medical needs and offer commercial opportunities in our core business areas: Hepatitis and transplant, Gram- positive bacterial infections and nicotine addiction. The company has recently announced the formation of two strategic business units: Nabi Biologics and Nabi Pharmaceuticals. Nabi Biologics has responsibility for the company’s protein and immunological products and development pipeline, including Nabi-HB. Nabi Pharmaceuticals is responsible for the NicVAX® (Nicotine Conjugate Vaccine) and StaphVAX® (Staphylococcus aureus Polysaccharide Conjugate Vaccine) development programs, as well as for the continuing milestone-related clinical development obligations following the sale of PhosLo® (calcium acetate). For a complete list of pipeline products, please go to: http://www.nabi.com/pipeline/index.php. The company is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. For additional information about Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, please visit our Web site: http://www.nabi.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Statements in this release that are not strictly historical are forward- looking statements and include statements about reorganization of our current business into two new business units, our strategic alternatives process and clinical trials and studies. You can identify these forward-looking statements because they involve our expectations, beliefs, projections, anticipations or other characterizations of future events or circumstances. These forward- looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of any number of factors. These factors include, but are not limited to, risks relating to our ability to: realize anticipated cost savings related to job elimination due to greater than anticipated severance-related costs or other factors; successfully partner with third parties to fund, develop, manufacture and/or distribute our existing and pipeline products, including NicVAX and our Gram- positive infections products; obtain successful clinical trial results; our ability to successfully complete our strategic alternatives process; generate sufficient cash flow from sales of products or from milestone or royalty payments to fund our development and commercialization activities; attract and maintain the human and financial resources to commercialize current products and bring to market products in development; depend upon third parties to manufacture or fill our products; obtain regulatory approval for our products in the U.S. or other markets, including approval of Nabi-HB Intravenous; realize sales from Nabi-HB due to patient treatment protocols, the number of liver transplants performed in HBV-positive patients and competitive products; achieve market acceptance of our products; expand our sales and marketing capabilities or enter into and maintain arrangements with third parties to market and sell our products; effectively and/or profitability use, or utilize the full capacity of, our vaccine manufacturing facility; manufacture NicVAX or other products in our own vaccine manufacturing facility; comply with reporting and payment obligations under government rebate and pricing programs; raise additional capital on acceptable terms, or at all; and re-pay our outstanding convertible senior notes when due. Many of these factors are more fully discussed, as are other factors, in the company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2006 and our Quarterly Report for the quarter ended March 31, 2007 on Form 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Source: Nabi Biopharmaceuticals
