Principals of a Reno company under federal investigation for its cancer-fighting claims also are embroiled in a lawsuit in which they're accused of milking shareholders of a Florida company.
The Securities and Exchange Commission suspended trading in the shares of Renobased ArTec Inc.
two days before Christmas.
The SEC said the suspension, which runs through this Friday, results from "a lack of current and accurate information" about claims the company made that its Tubercin substance is effective in fighting cancer.
In press releases distributed in Europe, Asia and the United States this autumn,ArTec said Tubercin saved the life of a cancer-stricken Greek student and said the company is working toward U.S.
approval of the drug.
The company's stock, selling on the overthe- counter pink sheets at 40 cents a share when trading was suspended, traded as high as $2.15 on Oct.
8.
That was four days after the company's press release concerning Tubercin's success in Greece.
The SEC doesn't comment on ongoing investigations.
But in its release on the trading suspension, C.
Joshua Felker, the SEC's assistant director in the division of enforcement, asked for information from securities brokers or investors.
(His e-mail is felkerc@sec.gov.) ArTec didn't return a phone message last week seeking comment about the SEC action.
It's not the first time Tubercin and the principals of ArTec Inc.
have been involved in disputes over Tubercin.
Ronald Shinn,ArTec's chairman, president and chief executive, previously was chief executive officer of Hard to Treat Diseases Inc.
of Delray Beach, Fla.
A trial is scheduled for January in federal court in a lawsuit filed by the current management of Hard to Treat Diseases against Shinn and Gerry Knight,ArTec's executive vice president.
Knight previously was secretary of Hard to Treat Diseases.
The Florida company complains that Shinn and Knight hijacked the rights to Tubercin.And the company's president, Colm J.
King, has taken a couple of hard punches at Shinn and Knight.
"The information supplied by Shinn and Knight clearly show their ineptitude at running a public company, their total disregard for shareholders, fiduciary responsibilities, the truth and the inescapable conclusions that they conspired to steal HTTD's money and damage its shareholders," King wrote his shareholders in late November.
He added, however, that he didn't want to try the case in a public arena.
In an earlier update to shareholders, King said the actions of Shinn and Knight involved "questionable legality."
