TorreyPines to liquidate after fire sale fizzles

With no white knight appearing from stage left with a buyout offer, the board at TorreyPines Therapeutics has decided to call it quits and join the ranks of the liquidated.

The decision to shutter the company comes three years after TorreyPines went public with about $80 million in the bank. That money is largely gone now, along with most of the company's staff. Only three staffers were left on duty after TorreyPines decided in March to stop all efforts aside from finding a buyer or some other eleventh-hour solution to its woes.

TorreyPines has been slipping steadily since the fall of 2007, when investors turned their thumbs down on new data for the developer's migraine therapy. The company listed $6.7 million in assets and $4.9 million in liabilities in its most recent quarterly report. TorreyPines battered stock closed at 31 cents on Friday.

- read the report from the San Diego Union-Tribune