Bound to happen, but still a sad commentary:
Holder Suit Filed Against CV Therapeutics
Dow Jones, Friday, August 08, 2003 at 16:58
SAN DIEGO (Dow Jones)--CV Therapeutics Inc. (CVTX) was named in a purported class-action shareholder suit after the Food and Drug Administration and the company canceled a meeting to discuss its Ranexa heart drug.
Earlier Friday, the company and the FDA canceled a September meeting to discuss the approval of Ranexa, a treatment for angina that was to be the company's first product.
In a press release Friday, the law firm of Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes&Lerach LLP said the shareholder suit is intended to be on behalf of purchasers of CV Therapeutics' common shares during the class period, May 14 to August 1.
The firm claims that CV artificially inflated its share price by"issuing a series of materially false and misleading statements"about the New Drug Application for Ranexa that was pending before the FDA.
CV's shares closed Friday down 5.8%, or $1.34, at $21.92, on Nasdaq volume of about 1.3 million shares. Average daily volume is about 1.1 million shares. The company's shares fell as low as $21.88 a share Friday.
CV's shares hit a 52-week high of $41.50 on June 6 and a 52-week low of $15.73 on February 4.
CV Therapeutics said earlier Friday that the cancellation of the meeting will not affect the deadline by which the FDA has to approve or disapprove of Ranexa's release.
Among other claims, Milberg Weiss said that the company misled the FDA in a number of ways, that the clinical testing program for Ranexa was"defective"and that the company was ill-equipped to deal with safety issues surrounding Ranexa.
Milberg Weiss claims that because CV Therapeutics artificially inflated its own stock price, it was able to sell $100 million of its own securities.
The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
A spokesman from CV Therapeutics was not available to comment on the allegations made by Milberg Weiss. |
