Could Histogen soon join the growing list of biotechs shutting up shop for good in 2023? That’s certainly the mood music of the company’s announcement that its last remaining programs are being placed on pause to explore “strategic alternatives.”
The immune-focused biotech made the call to extend its cash runway of $9.7 million, which as of the end of March was only expected to last to January 2024. The company had been hoping to launch a trial for its lead candidate emricasan for acute bacterial skin infections in the second half of 2023, but that ambition had been reliant on raising sufficient capital.
Histogen has been slowly shrinking its portfolio to survive over recent years, with 2021 seeing the company drop a phase 1 alopecia treatment to focus on its orthopedic candidates. In March 2023, the company then dropped both of those candidates as well, leaving just emricasan to sit alone on the clinical-stage pipeline.
Emricasan is a pan-caspase inhibitor designed to reduce the activities of human caspases, which are enzymes that mediate inflammation and cell death. As well as the hoped-for study in bacterial skin infections, the drug has already undergone various phase 1 trials, including for COVID-19 patients where it was shown to shorten symptoms and was well tolerated.
“We remain excited about emricasan given its broad potential to treat both viral and bacterial infections as a more generalized host-based immunotherapeutic treatment without the risk of generating resistance,” CEO Steven Mento, Ph.D., said in a postmarket release Wednesday. “However, we have paused our development activities in order to preserve our remaining resources and extend our cash runway to explore strategic alternatives that have the potential to benefit shareholders.”
Mento only took up the permanent CEO role in March. The former Idun Pharmaceuticals chief had been interim CEO of Histogen since November 2021.
Histogen isn’t the only company facing the end of the road this year. Already we’ve seen Sorrento Therapeutics and Athenex file for bankruptcy, Talaris Therapeutics and Oncorus let go of nearly all of their employees, and Vedere Bio II and Vyant Bio begin winding down operations.