Fresh Tracks cuts costs, mum on status of merger exploration

BOULDER — Fresh Tracks Therapeutics Inc., the Boulder-based pharmaceutical company formerly called Brickell Biotech, cut its net loss from the first quarter of 2022 in half during the most recent period, one in which the company continued the process of exploring its strategic options for a merger or sale.

The company, which has a pair of autoimmune and inflammatory disease treatments in the pipeline and negligible revenue, posted a net loss of $4.3 million in the first quarter this year, down from a loss of $9.4 million for the first quarter of 2022.

The cost reduction came largely from decreased research and development and clinical expenses related to a drug that it sold off last year.

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The 2022 rebrand of Fresh Tracks, which promoted a new CEO this year amid ongoing financial woes, occurred as the company seeks to pivot away from drugs that combat excessive sweating toward treatments for autoimmune, inflammatory and other debilitating diseases.

Brickell offloaded the rights to sofpironium bromide, its excessive-sweating drug, for a $9 million upfront payment last year to Botanix Pharmaceuticals Ltd., which pledged to make “additional success-based regulatory and sales milestone payments of up to $168 million and tiered earnout payments ranging from high single digits to mid-teen digits on net sales” of the gel, the company said in 2022.

In early March, Fresh Tracks, the stock price of which dipped below $1 per share this month, announced it had hired MTS Health Partners LP to explore its strategic options, which the company said could include “a financing, sale or licensing of assets, acquisition, merger, business combination, or other strategic transaction or series of related transactions.”

The company was mum this week about the progress of this exploration, saying only that “Fresh Tracks does not expect to disclose developments with respect to this process until the evaluation of strategic options has been completed or until the board has concluded disclosure is appropriate or legally required.”

In fact, Fresh Tracks’ leadership declined to hold the customary quarterly conference call with investors and analysts. “In consideration of the board and management team’s ongoing process of exploring and evaluating strategic options to progress the development of the company’s novel pipeline, Fresh Tracks’ management has decided not to host a conference call to discuss its first quarter 2023 financial results,” the company said.