PROVIDENCE – Four out of nine members of Ocean Biomedical Inc.'s board of directors, including the new CEO, are stepping down amidst a larger effort to keep the company's Nasdaq listing.
On March 10, the biotech company announced that interim CEO Michelle Berrey, former Colorado Gov. William Owens, former Brown University dean of medicine and biological sciences Jack Elias, and entrepreneur Suren Ajjarpu would not be seeking reelection to the board of directors, according to SEC filings.
All four were expected to officially step down at an annual shareholders' meeting on Friday, the filings read. Ocean Biomedical did not immediately respond to PBN request for comment.
The company said in SEC filings that it's working to find two independent directors to fill those vacancies.
The news comes as the embattled Rhode Island biotech pharmaceutical company stock has plummeted more than 83% year-to-date, according to InvestorPro.
Ocean Biomedical has been
struggling to maintain its Nasdaq listing since last year, when it received several notices about potential delisting after failing to file quarterly and other required financial reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
On March 14, the company received another notice from Nasdaq that determined its securities had a closing bid price of $0.10 or less for 10 consecutive trading days, which violates Nasdaq's “Low Priced Stocks Rule.” That matter serves as an additional basis for delisting Ocean Biomedical securities from the Nasdaq Stock Market.
On March 26, Ocean Biomedical, which currently has a market capitalization of $1.98 million, made a permanent reduction to the conversion price on a portion of its debt. The company announced that it lowered the conversion price of $400,000 worth of promissory notes from $1.50 to $0.01 per share. This adjustment was done to meet the terms outlined in a 2023 financing agreement.
The Providence-based company, which launched out of Brown University in 2019 and went public in February 2023, describes itself as a “medical research innovation incubator," dedicated to advancing innovative treatments for cancer, infectious diseases and fibrosis.
The company was founded by Dr. Jack Elias, former dean of Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School; Dr. Jake Kurtis, chairman of pathology and laboratory medicine at Brown; and digital health entrepreneur Chirinjeev Kathuria.
In November 2023, Ocean Biomedical, working with joint venture partner Virion Therapeutics LLC, announced “highly compelling” preclinical data in research to develop new therapies for cancer and chronic diseases.
Matthew McNulty is a PBN staff writer. He can be reached at McNulty@PBN.com or on X at @MattMcNultyNYC.
