ATLANTA, April 24, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Chitwood & Harley announces that it has filed a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, on behalf of all who purchased or acquired the securities of VaxGen, Inc. ("VaxGen" or the "Company") (Nasdaq:VXGN), between August 6, 2002 and February 26, 2003, inclusive (the "Class Period"). The suit is brought against VaxGen, Inc., and certain of its officers and directors. A copy of the complaint is available on our website, www.classlaw.com by clicking on VaxGen.
The complaint charges VaxGen and certain of its officers and directors with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. VaxGen is engaged in the development and commercialization of AIDSVAX, a vaccine designed to prevent infection or disease caused by HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), the virus that causes AIDS. During the Class Period, defendants were completing the final stages of AIDSVAX's Phase III clinical trials required to obtain Food and Drug Administration approval to market AIDSVAX as an AIDS vaccine. Throughout the Class Period, defendants caused VaxGen to make a number of positive statements about the status of the trial and describing their eventual plans to manufacture and market AIDSVAX, causing VaxGen's stock to trade at artificially inflated prices.
On Feb. 23, 2003, VaxGen shocked the market by reporting the long-anticipated results of the U.S. trials, disclosing that the "study did not show a statistically significant reduction of HIV infection within the study population as a whole, which was the primary endpoint of the trial." The partial disclosure of the overall failure of the U.S. clinical trial caused VaxGen's shares to plummet, declining over 50% to approximately $3 per share on Feb. 24, 2003.
However, even when defendants released the results on Feb. 24, 2003, they claimed that while the vaccine failed to demonstrate efficacy on U.S. caucasians, the trials had demonstrated 30%-84% efficacy rates in U.S. blacks and Asians. That analysis, the company said, had less than a 1% chance of being due to random chance, making it highly statistically significant. VaxGen President Donald P. Francis touted the results as evidence that AIDSVAX could protect against HIV infection. As reported by The Wall Street Journal on Feb. 24, 2003, the "results overall won't lead the Food and Drug Administration to approve the vaccine for use in the wider public, but the company hopes that further analysis, as well as results from another trial being conducted in Thailand on injection drug users, may prompt the agency to approve the vaccine for some ethnic minorities." These corrective statements had their intended effect and VaxGen's stock closed at close to $7 per share on Feb. 24, 2003.
On Feb. 26, 2003, defendants were forced to admit that the reliability of their earlier reports of higher efficacy rates for non-caucasians were impaired because they had not taken the requisite "penalties" to account for the fact that less than 500 of the 5000 clinical trial participants were non-caucasians, resulting in an extremely small subset of data being analyzed for non-caucasians. As the news that earlier promises that AIDSVAX could prove useful for non-caucasians fell apart, the stock declined further, resulting in a total loss in market cap since Nov. 18, 2002 of approximately 85%.
The deadline to file lead plaintiff papers, for those class members wishing to serve in this capacity, is May 16, 2003. There are certain legal requirements to serve as lead plaintiff, which we would be happy to discuss with you. Any member of the purported class may move the Court to serve as lead plaintiff through counsel of their choice, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. If you wish to discuss this action or have any questions concerning this notice or your rights with respect to this matter, you may contact Lauren Antonino or Jennifer Morris at 1-888-873-3999 (toll-free) or by e-mail at jlm@classlaw.com. You may also contact us through our website, www.classlaw.com, by clicking on VaxGen, Inc.
Chitwood & Harley LLP is a class action firm that concentrates its practice in representing victims of securities fraud and corporate mismanagement, as well as other complex litigation. Chitwood & Harley has been appointed lead counsel in major actions throughout the United States and has been instrumental in recovering billions of dollars on behalf of its clients. Clients and courts alike have praised the results achieved by Chitwood & Harley. Recently, the federal judge in In re BankAmerica Securities Litigation, which resulted in the highest recovery last year in a securities class action, commented favorably on counsel's performance stating: "Class members were well served by experienced attorneys who, through considerable time and effort, obtained a significant recovery for their clients," and, "(a)s the Court has remarked throughout this litigation, class counsel ... have performed at exceptionally high levels, and all parties have been exceedingly well represented."
For more information about Chitwood & Harley, please visit our website at www.classlaw.com or contact Jennifer Morris at 1-888-873-3999 (toll-free), by e-mail at jlm@classlaw.com or at 1230 Peachtree Street, Suite 2300, Atlanta, Georgia 30309.
More information on this and other class actions can be found on the Class Action Newsline at www.primezone.com/ca