Dive Brief:
- Cancer company MabVax Therapeutics is facing delisting from the NASDAQ Capital Market as it no longer has enough cash for continued listing – the troubled company does not meet the requirement of maintaining a minimum of $2,500,000 in stockholders' equity, and its share price has been below $1.00 for more than a month. MabVax has until September 30 to submit a plan.
- Investors have pitched in for $1.3 million of shares of Series J Convertible Preferred Stock at $550 a share, convertible into common stock at $0.55 per share. The lead investor will cough up an additional $1.0 million after agreement of strategic measures in a meeting at the end of September.
- MabVax has taken on the services of an undisclosed global independent investment bank to help it explore strategic options. These could include acquisition, sale or divestiture of specific assets, merger, licensing deals or divestitures followed by a reverse merger.
Dive Insight:
MabVax began trading on the NASDAQ on Aug. 17, 2016, and by early September had hit an all-time high of $6.05. However, since then its share price has been pretty much in constant freefall, down over 90% to $0.47. This means that things are getting pretty serious, and it's down to Phase 1 overspending in studies of the company's therapeutic antibody MVT-5873 and the PET diagnostic imaging product MVT-2163. Put simply, clinical expenses exceeded the capital raised.
There was a glimmer of silver lining in the Phase 1 cloud, however, which will be useful in any forthcoming deals; results from both trials showed demonstrating early safety, specificity for the target and a potential efficacy signal.
"We have been taking deliberate steps to identify ways to secure the necessary capital to fund the company in order to advance our pipeline. While very challenging, we believe our financing strategy along with the opportunity to work with an investment bank that specializes in strategic transactions may provide the potential for the catalytic impact needed at this important time in the evolution of MabVax," stated David Hansen, MabVax's president and CEO.
MabVax's lead antibody radioimmunotherapy (RIT), MVT-1075, is in a Phase 1 trial for the treatment of CA19-9 positive malignancies including pancreatic, colon and lung cancers. Interim data is expected by the end of 2017.
So now, it's really just a wait and see until the special meeting of stockholders, which will be on or around Sept. 28.