Skin-focused Sirona Biochem is liquidating its R&D subsidiary after a pair of financing deals and a licensing agreement with AbbVie’s Allergan Aesthetics fell apart.
Sirona signed an agreement with Allergan back in 2022 that would have allowed the AbbVie unit to develop and commercialize topical skin care treatments tied to Sirona’s TFC-1067. Sirona had developed TFC-1067 as an alternative skin-lightening treatment to hydroquinone, and the deal enabled Allergan to work on various skin treatments based on active ingredients derived from TFC-1067-related patents.
That agreement appears to have come to an early end, with Sirona revealing in a post-market release Friday that Allergan has since backed out of the plans to commercialize TFC-1067.
“Sirona values the experience gained through this collaboration and appreciates the opportunity to have worked with a global leader in medical aesthetics,” Sirona said in the release.
To make matters worse, the Canadian company’s attempts to inject some much-needed cash into the business have also failed.
In April, Sirona—which describes itself as a “cosmetic ingredient and drug discovery company”—revealed two potential avenues to help keep the business on the road. They included a strategic investment from German investor Promura for 3 million Canadian dollars ($2.2 million), with a further 12 million Canadian dollars ($8.7 million) from Promura expected to be invested in a new antiaging joint venture called Sirona Laboratories.
At the same time, Sirona separately announced that it was planning to raise $400,000 via the private placement of unsecured, convertible debentures.
Sirona said Friday that after “multiple assurances and repeated delays,” the funds promised by Promura had never been received. “Sirona has now concluded that the investment will not materialize,” the company said.
Even the private placement “did not attract sufficient investor participation to proceed successfully,” Sirona admitted.
Those funds were badly needed, with Sirona revealing that its Vancouver-based management team has been working without payment for the last two years as well as “personally contribut[ing] funds to sustain essential operations.”
Facing such a tight financial situation, the company is moving to liquidate its France-based development subsidiary, called TFChem. The unit’s laboratories, where Sirona conducted its work developing new glycomimetic compounds, have already closed, according to the release.
“Despite ongoing and significant challenges, management acknowledges that the commercial potential of its proprietary technologies remains uncertain,” Sirona added. “Nevertheless, it is evaluating structural and financial options that could, if feasible, support their future development.”
Sirona had previously tried to break out of cosmetics and move into pharmaceuticals via a sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitor called TFC-039, but its attempts to find a partner for the prospective diabetes therapy collapsed in 2023.