With debt loom­ing, brow­beat­en di­et pill mak­er Orex­i­gen goes bank­rupt -- shares slide

Di­et pill mak­er Orex­i­gen Ther­a­peu­tics is wav­ing the white flag Mon­day morn­ing af­ter a years-long bat­tle to bring its fi­nances in­to the black. With crush­ing debt loom­ing, the com­pa­ny is fil­ing Chap­ter 11 bank­rupt­cy in a last-ditch ef­fort to set­tle its ac­counts.

This is not the first time the com­pa­ny has tried to right the ship. Back in Oc­to­ber, Orex­i­gen $OREX an­nounced it was seek­ing bid­ders for the com­pa­ny’s as­sets. The last straw for the drug­mak­er’s suf­fer­ing bal­ance sheet was a mas­sive debt pay­ment that came due thanks to slow sales of Orex­i­gen’s lead prod­uct, Con­trave. The San Diego-based com­pa­ny was sup­posed to reach $100 mil­lion in sales by the end of 2017, but came in shy at just un­der that fig­ure. As part of the loan terms, that fail­ure trig­gered a pay­ment Orex­i­gen could not af­ford.

Endpoints News

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.