Anesiva didn't make it intact into the new year. The South San Francisco-based company announced on New Year's Eve that it couldn't complete a planned merger with Arcion Therapeutics and instead would cease operations and file for bankruptcy.
The merger pact came with some tough provisions, including a requirement that Anesiva gin $20 million from a stock sale and clean up some debts. In a statement, the developer says it was unable to meet the conditions laid out in the merger deal.
The bankruptcy notice caps a long, painful struggle for Anesiva, which announced it was cutting jobs in the fall of 2008. Later, manufacturing problems forced the company to halt production of its Zingo pain patch, and last spring auditors issued a going-concern notice to the company, saying Anesiva didn't have enough funds to complete development of its only drug, Adlea.
- check out the Anesiva release