National Employee Morale Day At XenoPort (XNPT)

Biotech firm XenoPort (XNPT) will lay-off half of its employees. The company lists 219 full-time workers.

On February 17, the FDA rejected a restless leg syndrome drug being developed by XenoPort and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) because of a potential link to cancer found in rats. Six research firms downgraded the stock including DeutscheBank and Citigroup. XenoPort’s stock dropped from $20 to under $7 in a day.

To make shareholders feel better Ronald W. Barrett, Ph.D., XenoPort’s chief executive officer said, “We are fortunate to have a number of product candidates in clinical development as well as several other advanced preclinical compounds that can be developed.” But, there is apparently not enough potential in the candidates to keep the staff intact.

Dr. Barrett made $1.9 million last year, according to the company’s proxy. He had to fire a lot of people to cover that.

Douglas A. McIntyre