MabVax Therapeutics, a privately held cancer immunotherapy company, and Telik, a clinical stage oncology drug development company, have merged. MabVax became a wholly owned subsidiary of Telik effective July 8, following Telik stockholder approval at Telik's annual meeting of stockholders July 7.

MabVax appointed a new management team and board of directors of Telik, which became effective July 8. Management also filed a definitive proxy statement and plans a special meeting of stockholders to obtain approval for three proposals that failed to obtain the required number of votes for approval at Telik's annual meeting of stockholders. These three proposals would change Telik's name to MabVax Therapeutics Holdings, effect a five-to-one reverse stock split to meet NASDAQ initial listing requirements and result in an increase in the number of authorized shares of common stock and preferred stock.

David Hansen, president and CEO of the company, said, "We believe with proper solicitation of votes from our expanded stockholder base, we should be able receive approval for the outstanding proposals at the upcoming meeting and thus achieve all of our objectives in the merger with Telik. We also believe that the appeal we have filed with the NASDAQ Listing Council and the plan we have put in place for obtaining stockholder approvals should help to resolve the remaining listing issues with NASDAQ in the near term."