Troubled U.K. biotech Antisoma said it has no permanent staff members and is continuing to look at options for the company, according to PharmaTimes.

In an interim statement, Chairman Grahame Cook reflected on the firm's future following the failure in phase III of AS1413 (amonafide) in secondary acute myeloid leukemia. Development of the drug was discontinued in February; the company said then it was seeking a transaction to maximize value from its remaining product assets and cash resources.

Cook said Antisoma has scaled back operations to the point where "permanent headcount has now been reduced to nil and the board has been cut to five members."

Antisoma has had a bad time with clinical setbacks. Besides the failure of amonafide, the stock sank in March 2010 when its Novartis-partnered drug ASA404 failed to show any survival benefit in a late-stage trial in patients with lung cancer. Novartis pulled out of the pact in November.