Attorneys for Evanston-based Northfield Laboratories Inc. reached an agreement with a San Diego weekly newspaper in a precourt battle for the right to publish documents relating to the company’s major project, an experimental blood substitute.
A California judge granted Northfield, 1560 Sherman Ave., a temporary restraining order prohibiting the San Diego Reader from publishing information related to clinical trials for PolyHeme, a blood substitute still undergoing clinical trials that can be given to any patient on the scene of an accident. The company said this information contained trade secrets and could endanger the company’s competitive edge if made public.
That court order was dropped when attorneys and representatives for both parties settled the case during a day-long meeting held Tuesday.
“We agreed that the temporary restraining order would be dissolved, dismissed,” said Richard Spirra, attorney for the paper. “And that the Reader can keep all the documents it has obtained.”
San Diego is one of 30 U.S. cities conducting trials of the blood substitute. In return, the Reader agreed not to publish information on how PolyHeme will be shipped and stored or a list of the specific tests that would be run on blood samples taken, Spirra said.
“The court order was unconstitutional and invalid,” he said, adding that the Reader did not receive a notice to appear in court and oppose the order.
A key concern in negotiations was respecting the newspaper’s constitutional rights to the documents, which were obtained under the California Public Records Act, Spirra said.
Spirra said the documents did not contain trade secrets. What exactly is included in the documents remains unclear, but the information could be included in a future story, the Reader’s attorney said.
Last summer the Reader published an in-depth cover story about how the drug would be tested and who would be involved in the experiment. Because the drug is administered to patients who often are incoherent, patient consent is not required before applying PolyHeme.
According to the story, the University of California at San Diego and the city agreed to test PolyHeme in areas of the city populated by minorities and underprivileged residents. The Reader suggested these patients might have difficulty taking legal recourse if medical complications arose from the use of the drug.
The Reader has not written about Northfield since the restraining order went into effect at the end of last year. If the companies hadn’t settled, the order would have remained in effect until Jan. 13.
Created by Dr. Stephen Gould, founder and president of Northfield Laboratories, PolyHeme is designed especially for severe trauma patients. It can be given to patients of any blood type at the scene of an accident when the patient is unconscious, buying time before the patient arrives at a hospital.
Gould did not return phone calls to his office, and a spokeswoman for Northfield declined to comment on the court order or on the Reader’s story.
Last week Northfield received $3.5 million in federal military funding to conduct clinical trials of PolyHeme. The funding was part of the federal government’s defense appropriations bill.
On top of the recent legal troubles, Northfield is facing financial problems. Last week, Northfield reported a loss of more than $6 million for the second quarter of fiscal year 2006.
The company lost more than $4 million during the same fiscal period last year.
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