Monday, October 23, 2006

Inspire - Prolacria: SEC produce tears

Federal securities regulators have notified Inspire Pharmaceuticals that they may sue the Durham company over possible omissions and misstatements in its reports to investors.

Staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission intends to recommend the SEC bring a civil action against the company and two executives regarding possible violations of securities law and rules.


Chief executive Christy Shaffer and Mary Bennett, executive vice president of operations and communications, also received notices from the SEC staff.

At issue is a clinical trial of Prolacria, the company's experimental therapy for dry-eye disease, Inspire said in a statement.

The SEC opened a formal probe of Inspire in September 2005. At that time, company officials said they thought the probe was related to trading of the company's shares seven months earlier, when it reported that the latest test of the experimental drug found it no more effective than saline drops for treating the symptoms of dry-eye disease.

The disappointing test results caused the company's stock to drop sharply. The events also prompted several shareholder lawsuits.

Inspire and the executives can respond in writing to the SEC notice before the staff makes any formal recommendation to the agency. Inspire said they will be preparing submissions and may seek a further meeting with the staff.

Source

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Knowing several people at Inspire Pharma, I am confident more executive at Inspire Pharma should be investigated by SEC and sued. In particular the main Inspire's dry-eye inventor Ben Yerxa "the Dry your-eye mate" CSO could be behind a lot of manipulations and lies.