Gritstone bio may have left no stone unturned when it came to searching for a financial rescue, but the vaccine biotech has decided that all roads now lead to bankruptcy.
The cash-strapped company brought in bankers last week to explore “potential value-maximizing strategies” after its phase 2 colorectal cancer vaccine data fell short of the success needed to reverse its fortunes.
With money already expected to run out by year-end, Gritstone announced this morning that it has filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.
The biotech is planning to use the court-administered restructuring process to “preserve value and support its ongoing strategic alternatives process,” it said in an Oct. 10 release. Gritstone is already in discussions with a potential buyer that could act as a “stalking horse bidder” to ensure a “value-maximizing transaction” that would allow the company to continue its R&D work.
Having entered July with $62 million left in the bank, all eyes had been on whether the phase 2 data last week for Gritstone’s GRANITE individualized neoantigen-targeting immunotherapy could boost the company’s prospects. But while Gritstone reported a hazard ratio of 0.79 in favor of patients who received GRANITE along with checkpoint inhibition, the top end of the 95% confidence interval was 1.50, a result that would mean the control group performed much better than the cancer vaccine.
Evercore ISI analyst Jonathan Miller said at the time that “there does seem to be activity, more than other oncovaccines have shown in similar settings,” while acknowledging the “limitations of the data set.”
Explaining the strategy behind the bankruptcy proceedings, Gritstone CEO Andrew Allen, M.D., Ph.D., said in a statement that the company needs “additional time … for the data to mature.”
“The decision to file for chapter 11 relief allows us to stay focused on our mission of bringing potentially life-saving treatments like GRANITE to patients around the world,” Allen added in this morning’s release.