TORONTO (Reuters) - Protiva Biotherapeutics said on
Wednesday it plans to push ahead with a lawsuit filed earlier
this year to stop Inex Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Protiva, which was spun off from Inex in 2001, said that under an agreement with Inex, it must give consent for it to assign the agreements to another party. Protiva vowed to "pursue the available legal remedies" to prevent the transaction.
Earlier this year, Vancouver-based Inex unveiled plans to spin-off its targeted chemotherapy and targeted immunotherapy divisions into a separate company to be called Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp., which Protiva claims includes its agreements.
Inex said earlier this week it hopes to complete the transformation by the end of September.
But Protiva said that timetable is neither "realistic or appropriate," given the lack of consent and the pending litigation.
"Our agreements with Inex plainly state that Inex requires Protiva's consent if it wishes to assign them to another party, as it appears Inex is proposing to do," Mark Murray, Protiva's president and chief executive said in a release.
"We have refused to provide that consent and will continue to pursue the available legal remedies to prevent this transaction from happening."
The two companies have displayed a litigious relationship
since the spin-off earlier this decade. In late March, Protiva
filed separate lawsuits against Inex and Sirna Therapeutics
Inc.
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