MultiCell Announces Results of Shareholders' Meeting
WARWICK, R.I.
MultiCell Technologies, Inc.
Jerry Newmin, 401-738-7560
MultiCell Technologies, Inc. (OTCBB:EXTI) held its Shareholders Meeting Wednesday, June 16, 2004 at the Mission Valley Stadium Holiday Inn in San Diego, CA. Shareholders ratified the three routine items on the proxy statement: the adoption of the 2004 Equity Incentive Plan, the ratification of J.H. Cohn, LLP as independent public accountants and the re-election of four incumbent directors, W. Gerald Newmin, Thomas A. Page, Ann Ryder Randolph and Edward Sigmond. Ninety-two percent of eligible votes were voted at the meeting.
W. Gerald "Jerry" Newmin, Chairman, President and CEO, welcomed attendees, introduced the Board of Directors, the Scientific Advisory Board and other guests, and gave a Company update: The State of Rhode Island recently approved the merger of Exten Industries and its wholly owned subsidiary, MultiCell Technologies, Inc., announced earlier this year. The parent Company took the name of its subsidiary to better represent its current technology focus. An application for a new stock symbol has been submitted to the NASD, which will be announced as soon as it is received.
Mr. Newmin also announced that the Company was successful in its appeal against the unauthorized listing on the Berlin-Bremen Stock Exchange and has been delisted on this exchange as of June 11, 2004. He said that the new official MultiCell website, which will reflect the merged Company's new name and entity, should be operational within the month, and can be reached through the old and new URLs. Finally, Mr. Newmin said that the SEC has requested that the Company's recent filing of a Form S-3 registration statement be re-filed on a Form SB-2, which has been drafted and is expected to be re-submitted within the month.
Mr. Newmin concluded his announcements to the shareholders by saying that, "Your Company, MultiCell, has been transformed by three major events over the past three years. From a single-product medical device company, we have become a cellular technology company with multiple potential applications for the Company's immortalized human hepatocytes." The three events discussed by Mr. Newmin included the purchase of MultiCell in 2001, the Pfizer collaborative research agreement in 2002 and the XenoTech license agreement in late 2003. "As a result, though the Company's stock price has been volatile, the Company's stock has outperformed all major stock indices over the past two years," he added.
Mr. Newmin announced that Dr. Stephen Chang, Ph.D., CEO of Astral Therapeutics, and former chief science officer and vice president of Canji Inc./Schering Plough Research Institute in San Diego, has been nominated to serve on the Board of Directors of the newly merged MultiCell Technologies, Inc., and will act as liaison between the Board of Directors and the Company's Scientific Advisory Board, to which he was concurrently appointed.
Dr. Ronald Faris, MultiCell's Chief Science Officer and Chairman of MultiCell's Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), chaired the first meeting of the new SAB the morning of the Company's annual meeting. Dr. Faris also gave a presentation to the shareholders in attendance at the Company's annual meeting introducing the company's offices, staff, and laboratory facilities. He delineated the features of our two major proprietary cell lines and their performance characteristics. He reviewed the company's decision paradigms and the estimated size of various markets for the Company's future products.
Dr. Parkinson, founder and Chief Executive Officer of XenoTech, LLC, the Company's exclusive distributor of cell lines for drug discovery, presented some of XenoTech's strategic sales approach, promotional materials and scientific publications, including an article by Pfizer documenting Pfizer's successful evaluation of two of MultiCell's cell lines initiated in 2002. Several major pharmaceutical companies in the US, Europe and Japan have been constructively contacted and are in various stages of negotiation for use of MultiCell's proprietary cell lines for early stage drug discovery.
Since September 2003, XenoTech has been an invited presenter at more than a dozen industry events, as well as an exhibitor at major scientific conferences. Dr. Parkinson stated, "MultiCell's cell lines are ideally suited for CYP induction studies. Five of the world's top pharmaceutical companies have already signed evaluation licenses and have purchased cells for evaluation." Cells are now available to pharmaceutical companies through a streamlined, site-specific license agreement for either use and propagation, or for use only. Fifteen U.S. and ten Japanese pharmaceutical companies are currently reviewing the new license agreements.
MultiCell Technologies, Inc. provides non-tumorigenic functional immortalized hepatic (liver) cells and cell lines to pharmaceutical companies for metabolism and induction studies and toxicity screening for drug discovery. MultiCell's cellular product expertise also enables production of biologics for use in diagnostic and therapeutic applications, as well as production of liver-derived therapeutic proteins. The Company's majority-owned Xenogenics subsidiary owns all rights to the Sybiol(R) synthetic bio-liver device.
MultiCell's corporate and research headquarters are in Warwick, Rhode Island. For more information about MultiCell and its Xenogenics subsidiary, visit www.multicelltechnologies.com.
The matters set forth in this press release are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. These risks are detailed from time to time in the Company's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission including the Company's Annual Report, Quarterly Reports and other periodic filings. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof. The Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements.
app.quotemedia.com |
