After Shuttering Genomics Division, Tapestry Risks Being Delisted from Nasdaq

NEW YORK, March 7 (GenomeWeb News) - Tapestry Pharmaceuticals, formerly known as NaPro BioTherapeutics, is in danger of being delisted to the Nasdaq Small-Cap Market for failing to keep its share price above $1 for 30 consecutive trading days, according to a news report.

Tapestry has until Aug. 24 to "regain compliance," according to the Denver Post. The company is based in Boulder, Colo. Tapestry is repositioning itself as a drug maker, and the company is "still getting the word out on what we are and what we do," the newspaper quoted Gordon Link, senior vice president and chief financial officer, as saying.

The news comes two months after Tapestry closed its genomics division in Delaware, and laid off 25 staffers. As GenomeWeb News reported last November, the company said it was taking the steps, which included selling or licensing out most of its assets, in order to save costs to develop its cancer drugs.

"Although we believe our gene editing technology has considerable long-term value, this current restructuring now focuses the majority of our assets on the development of our nearer term oncology clinical drug candidate portfolio," Leonard Shaykin, Tapestry CEO, said at the time.

The lay-offs affected about one-fourth of Tapestry's employees, and, along with the rest of the company's restructuring plans, including the closing of its Newark, Del., facility, are expected to save the firm about $4 million annually, according to a statement. The company's genomics program in  Huntington's disease will be the genomics division's only project to remain operational, the company added.

Rodman and Renshaw have served as Tapestry's financial advisor during the sale and licensing of its assets, Tapestry said during the time.

Tapestry's genomics division oversaw the company's gene-editing technology, which uses oligonucleotides to locate, label, isolate, and modify a single base pair in an organism's gene. Before the restructuring, the Boulder, Colo.-based company developed and licensed genomics technologies for agriculture, pharmacogenomics, diagnostics, and therapeutics.

NaPro changed its name to Tapestry in May 2004.