RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2015

Related Party Transactions [Abstract]

Related Party Transactions Disclosure [Text Block]

NOTE 8 – RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS

On January 30, 2012, we entered into an exclusive license agreement with LFB Biotechnologies, GTC Biotherapeutics and LFB/GTC LLC, all wholly-owned subsidiaries of LFB Group, relating to the development of ublituximab (the “LFB License Agreement”). In connection with the LFB License Agreement, LFB Group was issued 5,000,000 shares of common stock, and a warrant to purchase 2,500,000 shares of common stock at a purchase price of $0.001 per share. In addition, on November 9, 2012, we nominated Dr. Yann Echelard to our Board of Directors as LFB Group’s nominee. LFB Group maintains the right to nominate a board member until such time as LFB Group owns less than 10% of the outstanding common stock.

In connection with the LFB License Agreement, LFB maintained the right to purchase at least $750,000 in additional shares of common stock at a purchase price per share as defined in a November 2012 securities exchange agreement. Accordingly, in February 2015, LFB purchased 114,855 shares of our common stock at a price of $6.53 per share for net proceeds of $750,000. In May 2015, LFB exercised their warrant to purchase 2,500,000 shares of common stock at a purchase price of $0.001 per share.

Under the terms of the LFB License Agreement, we utilize LFB Group for certain development and manufacturing services. We incurred approximately $161,000 and $183,000 in expenses for such services during the three months ended March 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively, which have been included in other research and development expenses in the accompanying consolidated statements of operations. As of March 31, 2015 and December 31, 2014, we had approximately $3,134,000 and $52,000, respectively, recorded in accounts payable related to the LFB License Agreement. In conjunction with the development and manufacturing services discussed above, certain agreements between us and LFB Group require payments in advance of services performed or goods delivered. Accordingly, as of March 31, 2015 and December 31, 2014, we recorded $6,090,548 and $1,886,518, respectively, in prepaid research and development for such advance payments.

In March 2014, we entered into a shared services agreement with Opus Point Partners Management, LLC (“Opus”) in which the parties agreed to share the costs of a rented facility and certain other services.  Michael S. Weiss, our Executive Chairman and Interim Chief Executive Officer, is a Managing Member of Opus. During the three months ended March 31, 2015, we incurred expenses of approximately $59,000, principally for rent, related to this agreement. As of March 31, 2015, we had approximately $20,000 recorded in accounts payable related to this shared services agreement.

As discussed in Note 7 above, with regard to the Collaboration with Checkpoint, Mr. Weiss is also the Executive Vice Chairman of Fortress and the Executive Chairman of Checkpoint. In addition, Mr. Weiss holds equity interests in TG, Fortress and Checkpoint. Therefore, Mr. Weiss will derive an indirect benefit from the Collaboration through Fortress and our share of the collaboration.

               On October 3, 2014, we entered into a Desk Space Agreement (the “Desk Agreement”) with Fortress, to occupy approximately 40% of the New York, NY office space recently leased by Fortress. This Desk Agreement requires us to pay our respective share of the average annual rent and other costs of the 15 year lease. We approximate an average annual rental obligation of $1.1 million  under the Desk Agreement. Fortress does not expect to take possession of the space until late 2015 or early 2016. Michael S. Weiss, our Executive Chairman and Interim Chief Executive Officer, is on the board of directors and is Executive Vice Chairman, Strategic Development of Fortress.

In connection with the Desk Agreement, we paid $80,000 in advance rent payments, which is recorded in other current assets in the accompanying Consolidated Balance Sheet as of March 31, 2015 and December 31, 2014. Also in connection with this lease, in October 2014 we pledged $0.6 million to secure a line of credit as a security deposit for the Desk Agreement, which has been recorded as Restricted Cash in the accompanying consolidated balance sheet.