EVANSTON, Ill., Aug. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --
Northfield Laboratories Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLD), a leading developer of an oxygen-
carrying blood substitute for trauma and elective surgery situations, today
mailed a letter to its shareholders in which Steven A Gould, M.D.,
Northfield's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, outlined the important
steps Northfield is taking to build strong support for its PolyHeme(TM) blood
substitute product in the medical and scientific communities. The following
is the text of Dr. Gould's letter:
Dear Fellow Shareholder:
Northfield's annual meeting of shareholders is only two weeks away and
your vote is very important. I urge you to act today to protect the value
of your investment by signing, dating and returning the BLUE proxy card
today.
As you may know, a dissident shareholder, C. Robert Coates, has begun
issuing almost daily press releases as part of his campaign to seat
himself and an associate on the Northfield Board of Directors. In these
press releases, Mr. Coates has attempted to showcase his "program" to
"raise the public profile" of Northfield's PolyHeme(TM) blood substitute
product.
Mr. Coates' recent promotional releases, however, have included unwise
statements implicitly criticizing the FDA and suggesting that the agency
might be proposing "ethically inappropriate research" in connection with
blood substitute products. As a result of these statements, it was
necessary for Northfield to provide a letter to the FDA confirming that
Mr. Coates is not authorized to speak on behalf of Northfield and that we
do not share the views expressed in his press releases. This unfortunate
episode was extremely embarrassing for Northfield and is not helpful at
this critical stage of our discussions with the FDA.
In contrast to Mr. Coates' unprofessional and counterproductive
promotional schemes, Northfield is continuing its aggressive efforts to
build strong support for PolyHeme in the medical and scientific
communities. For example, the August 10, 2002 issue of The Lancet, the
prestigious British medical journal, included a scientific report on the
successful use of PolyHeme in the treatment of a patient with severe
sickle cell anemia by doctors from Montefiore Medical Center and Albert
Einstein College of Medicine in New York. The patient was a 40 year-old
woman for whom compatible blood could not be found to treat a sickle cell
crisis occurring after surgery. The report documents the important role
that PolyHeme might play in managing complications in patients with sickle
cell anemia.
Upcoming issues of The Journal of the American College of Surgeons and
Transfusion will also feature reports describing the use of PolyHeme in
the treatment of trauma and life-threatening anemias. In addition, during
September we will be making important presentations on the status of
PolyHeme to the United States military at the Advanced Technology
Applications for Combat Casualty Care and to trauma specialists at a
meeting of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma.
We believe these types of publications and presentations represent the
most effective way to present our ongoing clinical results to the medical
and scientific communities, since the acceptance of this work following
scientific peer-review represents validation of our results. Most
importantly, we believe that achieving acceptance of our results by the
medical and scientific communities will be a critical step in ultimately
obtaining FDA approval for PolyHeme.
I urge you to support our efforts to build recognition for PolyHeme in a
responsible, productive manner. Please act today by signing, dating and
returning the BLUE proxy card today.
If you have any questions or comments voting your shares or the issues
facing our company, please call Innisfree M&A Incorporated, who is
assisting us, toll-free at 1-888-750-5834.
Thank you for your continued support.
Steven A. Gould, M.D.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
REMEMBER_ONLY YOUR LATEST DATED PROXY COUNTS!
If you have already voted a White proxy card in error, you have every legal
right to change your vote by signing and returning a later-dated BLUE proxy
card today.
To ensure that your vote is counted for Northfield's director nominees, do NOT
sign any White proxy card sent to you by C. Robert Coates, even to withhold
your support for the Coates nominees. Simply discard the White card.
If you have any questions or need assistance in voting your shares, please
call:
Innisfree M&A Incorporated
501 Madison Avenue, 20th Floor
New York, New York 10022
Statements in this release that are not strictly historical are "forward-
looking" statements that are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of
the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking
statements involve known and unknown risks, which may cause the company's
actual results in the future to differ materially from expected results. These
risks include, among others: competition from other blood substitute products;
the company's ability to obtain regulatory approval to market PolyHeme
commercially; the company's and/or its representative's ability to
successfully market and sell PolyHeme; the company's ability to manufacture
PolyHeme in sufficient quantities; the company's ability to obtain an adequate
supply of raw materials; the company's ability to maintain intellectual
property protection for its proprietary product and to defend its existing
intellectual property rights from challenges by third parties; the
availability of capital to finance planned growth; and the extent to which the
hospitals and physicians using PolyHeme are able to obtain third-party
reimbursement, as described in the company's filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission.
Visit the Northfield website at: http://www.northfieldlabs.com
SOURCE Northfield Laboratories Inc.
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Related links:
http://www.northfieldlabs.com
CONTACT:
Steven A. Gould, M.D., Chief Executive
Officer of Northfield Laboratories Inc., +1-847-864-3500, or
Investors, Lisa Fortuna, +1-312-640-6779, or Media, Cindy Martin,
+1-312-640-6741, both of FRB Weber Shandwick
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