The small, struggling PolyMedix ($PYMX) has thrown in the towel and handed over the company to a bankruptcy court. Just two weeks after the Radnor, PA-based biotech floated a plan for a reverse split designed to get the penny stock player onto Nasdaq, the company's acting CEO and a pair of directors handed in their resignations and the developer filed for Chapter 7.
PolyMedix defaulted on a $6.8 million payment due to MidCap Financial, which had obtained a pledge of virtually all of the company's assets. And Edward F. Smith walked away from his job as acting president, CEO and CFO. Now a trustee will be appointed to run the company, which notified its investors of the last move in a document filed with the SEC. The takedown was quick. A check of the company's website this morning noted that the account had been suspended.
PolyMedix has been thrashing around for months in search of an escape route. A few weeks ago it announced a bid to raise $25 million in a public offering. Shoved into the CEO's chair, Smith tried to rally investors back in February, noting in a letter to shareholders that the company was working on the dose selection for a Phase IIb trial. The company, he said, was facing "exciting and challenging times."
A year ago the biotech touted what it called positive Phase II data on the antibiotic PMX-30063. Now dubbed brilacidin, the drug is a small molecule compound designed to mimic proteins known as host defense proteins, or HDPs, which supposedly beat out Cubicin in the study. But investors got a whiff of something other than victory and immediately beat down the company's shares 20%. It was the wrong way to go. PolyMedix had just obtained the first $8 million of a $12 million credit facility lined up with MidCap. And now a year later it looks like MidCap will wind up with an experimental antibiotic in exchange for the cash.
- here's the SEC filing