British biotech company Scotia Holdings sought protection from its creditors today as it hurried to put together a survival plan after international regulators rejected its lead drug.
Scotia, which faces a cash shortage from end-March, said it had appointed partners from accountancy firm Ernst & Young as joint administrators to run the business - a move designed to protect the group from creditors until it solves its funding crisis.
One of the administrators, Andrew Wollaston, said in a statement that the company's research and development work would continue and that they would explore all options to preserve and enhance the company's key platform technologies.
One of those technologies is Foscan, a treatment for head and neck cancer which has been denied approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European regulators.
Scotia says neither the Federal Drug Adminstration in the US nor Europe's Committee of Proprietary Medicinal Products has cited this an issue. The company has said it hopes to reapply for FDA approval and appeal against the committee's majority decision by the end of June.
The European committee is not happy with Foscan's efficacy rates. The FDA said the drug was inappropriate at this time .
Reuters