Bellerophon’s Board Agrees to Liquidate After Trial Failures and Layoffs

Bellerophon Therapeutics board of directors filed a plan with the SEC to liquidate the company after a late stage trial failure and a series of layoffs and delisted its shares from Nasdaq.

Shares, which had last traded at 5.5 cents a share, were delisted effective Monday, October 16.

At the end of June, Bellerophon announced that of its workforce and executive staff would be laid off over the next three months. The company had just ended development of its lead therapeutic device INOpulse after a phase 3 study of the investigational inhaled nitric oxide therapy for the treatment of fibrotic interstitial lung disease did not meet its primary endpoint related to the change in moderate to vigorous physical activity. Secondary endpoints also did not reach statistical significance.

Bellerophon had been developing three product candidates under the INOpulse platform, a proprietary pulsatile nitric oxide drug delivery system: for the treatment of pulmonary hypertension associated with interstitial lung disease; for the treatment of pulmonary hypertension associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; and for the treatment of pulmonary hypertension associated with sarcoidosis.  The programs for COPD and sarcoidosis were in phase 2 development.

The plan now goes to Bellerophon’s current stockholders for approval of dissolution.