After years of disappointment, a cure for Nabi Biopharmaceuticals’ (Nasdaq: NABI) woes may be at hand, and investors may want to reconsider this small cap biotech play.

While at times full of promise, for the most part, Boca Raton, Fla.-based biotech company Nabi has been a perennial money-loser and underperformer in recent years. Shares in Nabi, with a market cap of $328 million, are down 25% since June 2003, a period over which the biotech index has risen by 80%. In February of this year, Thomas McLain, the CEO of Nabi during this lackluster period, was forced out and Nabi board member and pharmaceutical industry veteran Les Hudson was named interim CEO. Hudson’s arrival could signal a turning point for the downtrodden company.  

Last November, after threats of a proxy contest by large Nabi shareholders Third Point and Knott Partners, the company announced it was forming a strategic action committee and undergoing a more thorough review of its strategic alternatives. Nabi also added two representatives from the activist investor group to its board of directors. Since Hudson has taken the reigns, Nabi has also split its operations into two strategic business units, Nabi Biologics and Nabi Pharmaceuticals. This reorganization could make a sale of one or both of these strategic business units more attractive to potential suitors. This move also helps simplify the Nabi story with investors.

Nabi is more complex than most biotech organizations of its size, given that it has its hands in two fairly distinct businesses. Nabi Biologics is responsible for the company’s protein and immunological products and development pipeline, with its core drug today being Nabi-HB. This unit also includes the company’s gold-standard plasma collection centers and its world-class protein fractionation and vaccine production plant. Nabi-HB provides antibody-based passive protection following exposure to the hepatitis B virus.

---You can read the FULL article when you register (registration is free!) or sign-in to SmallCapInvestor.com---