Thursday, April 9, 2009

La Jolla Pharmaceuticals Gets Dreaded "Going Concern" Opinion

San Diego-based La Jolla Pharmaceuticals, a publicly traded specialty pharmaceuticals firm, has received a dreaded "going concern" opinion from its auditor, Ernst & Young. The opinion--when an auditor decides that the firm being audited has issues to "continue as a going concern."--is often the death knell for firms. The declaration came in conjunction with another warning from the Nasdaq over compliance of exchange rules. However, both moves were not completely unexpected; the firm said in February that it had laid off a "substantial" amount of it staff and was looking for a buyer, after a failure in its Phase 3 trials.