Laguna Pharmaceuticals
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Laguna Pharmaceuticals was a La Jolla, California-based cardiovascular biotech (renamed from ChanRx in 2015, which had been spun out in 2006 to develop the compound vanoxerine, a treatment for atrial fibrillation). Led by CEO Bob Baltera and backed by Versant, Frazier, BioMed and Sante Ventures, the company raised a $30 million Series B in early 2015 to take its single lead drug into the Phase III 'Restore SR' trial.
02 / Laguna Pharmaceuticals FAILURE REASONS
Why it failed
The company bet everything on a single asset. Only two months into the ~600-patient Phase III trial, unspecified safety signals emerged for vanoxerine, halting the study. With the single drug program dead and no pipeline behind it, the company shut down within days of the halt - all 8 staff terminated. The irony noted at the time: investors had been attracted precisely by the drug's apparent mid-stage safety profile.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Company founded
Laguna Pharmaceuticals was founded.
- Operations ended
Laguna Pharmaceuticals ended operations.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Laguna Pharmaceuticals shut its doors on December 7, 2015, ten months after closing its $30 million Series B.
- 02
The Phase III Restore SR trial of its single lead drug vanoxerine was halted by unspecified safety signals.
- 03
All eight staff members were terminated; with no backup program, the company had no path to continue operating.