Encorium Group, Inc. Announces Delay in Filing its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the Year Ended December 31, 2009

WAYNE, Pa., April 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Encorium Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: ENCO), a full service clinical research organization (CRO) conducting studies in over 30 countries for many of the world's leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, announced today that it will file a Form 12b-25 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which will provide the Company with a 15- calendar day extension for filing its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2009. The Company's independent registered accounting firm has not completed its audit of the Company's financial statements and has not provided its report and consent for the Company's Annual Report.  The Company will file its Form 10-K as soon as its independent registered accounting firm provides its report on those financial statements and its consent.

As previously disclosed, on August 25, 2009, Encorium received a letter from The NASDAQ Stock Market notifying the Company that, based on its Form 10-Q for the period ended June 30, 2009, NASDAQ had determined that the Company's stockholders' equity does not comply with the minimum $2.5 million stockholders' equity requirement for continued listing on The NASDAQ Capital Market as required by NASDAQ Marketplace Rule 5550(b)(1).  On October 19, 2009 the Company received a letter from NASDAQ extending to December 8, 2009 the time to regain compliance with Rule 5550(b).  NASDAQ has informed that Company that, if at the time of its next periodic report for the year ending December 31, 2009 the Company does not evidence compliance, the Company may be subject to delisting.   The minimum stockholders' equity will not be met as of December 31, 2009.  If a delisting action is brought against the Company based on the failure to satisfy the stockholders' equity requirement, the Company may request a hearing before the NASDAQ Listing Qualifications Panel.  Such request would stay any delisting determination by the NASDAQ Listing Qualifications Staff and the Company's common stock would remain listed on NASDAQ pending a formal determination by the Panel.  However, there can be no assurances that the Panel will grant such request.

About Encorium Group, Inc.

Encorium Group, Inc. is a global clinical research organization specializing in the design and management of complex clinical trials and Patient Registries for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. The Company's mission is to provide its clients with high quality, full-service support for their biopharmaceutical and medical device development programs. Encorium offers therapeutic expertise, experienced team management and advanced technologies. The Company has drug and biologics development as well as clinical trial experience across a wide variety of therapeutic areas such as infectious diseases, cardiovascular, vaccines, oncology, diabetes endocrinology/metabolism, gene therapy, immunology, neurology, gastroenterology, dermatology, hepatology, women's health and respiratory medicine. Encorium believes that its expertise in the design of complex clinical trials, its therapeutic experience and commitment to excellence, and its application of innovative technologies, offer its clients a means to more quickly and cost effectively move products through the clinical development process.

This press release contains forward-looking statements identified by words such as "estimate," "project," "expect," "intend," "believe," "anticipate" and similar expressions. Those statements involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results could differ materially from those discussed. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: (i) the risk that we may not have sufficient funds to operate our business; (ii) our success in attracting new business and retaining existing clients and projects; (iii) the size, duration and timing of clinical trials we are currently managing may change unexpectedly; (iv) the termination, delay or cancellation of clinical trials we are currently managing could cause revenues and cash-on-hand to decline unexpectedly; (v) the timing difference between our receipt of contract milestone or scheduled payments and our incurring costs to manage these trials; (vi) outsourcing trends in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries; (vii) the ability to maintain profit margins in a competitive marketplace; (viii) our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel; (ix) the sensitivity of our business to general economic conditions; (x) other economic, competitive, governmental and technological factors affecting our operations, markets, products, services and prices; (xi) announced awards received from existing and potential customers are not definitive until fully negotiated contracts are executed by the parties; (xii) our backlog may not be indicative of future results and may not generate the revenues expected; (xiii) uncertainties regarding the availability of additional capital; and  (xiv) uncertainties regarding continued listing of our common stock on NASDAQ. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statement. We undertake no obligation to publicly release the result of any revision of these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date they are made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Please refer to the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008 and the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2009 for a more complete discussion of factors which could cause our actual results and financial position to change.

SOURCE Encorium Group, Inc.