It looks as if the biotech party is over at Cambridge, MA-based Peptimmune. The Boston Business Journal reports the developer, which has been working on a second-gen version of the MS drug Copaxone, has filed Chapter 7--which usually precedes liquidation.
Backed by such notable VC groups as New Enterprise Associates and MPM Capital, Peptimmune announced three years ago it had closed on the first tranche of its Series D. But the BBJ reports that a proposed $35 million round never came through, forcing the company to dwindle from a staff of 50 to a mere five workers. Now, with less than $6,000 of cash on hand, the biotech reports it has $2.01 million in assets and $2.17 million in liabilities.
Just last fall Peptimmune filed a citizen petition requesting that the FDA not approve any application for a generic version of Copaxone, which is marketed by Teva. The nine-year-old biotech was founded with technology developed in the labs of Dr. Jack Strominger at Harvard University and Dr. Hidde Ploegh from the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.
- here's the story from the Boston Business Journal