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.
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