Vical Incorporated (VICL)

Vical Incorporated was a San Diego biotechnology company founded in the late 1980s to develop medicines and vaccines based on DNA delivery technology. Instead of injecting a protein, its approach delivered genes that instructed the body's own cells to produce an antigen or therapeutic protein. Over three decades Vical licensed its platform to larger drug makers and pursued its own candidates in infectious disease, cancer and cardiovascular disease.

The company's stock traded on NASDAQ under the ticker VICL for many years, and its fortunes rose and fell with clinical results. A late-stage melanoma treatment called Allovectin-7 failed in 2013. Its most advanced vaccine program, a cytomegalovirus vaccine partnered with Astellas for transplant patients, failed a Phase 3 trial in early 2018. In February 2019 Vical also stopped developing its antifungal candidate VL-2397, leaving it with cash but no lead program.

Vical then explored strategic options and in June 2019 agreed to merge with Brickell Biotech, a privately held, clinical-stage medical dermatology company based in Boulder, Colorado. Brickell's lead asset was sofpironium bromide, a topical treatment for excessive underarm sweating. Vical expected to contribute about $35 million in cash, and its stockholders were to own about 40 percent of the combined company, with Brickell holders owning the rest.

The reverse merger closed at the end of August 2019. Vical carried out a 1-for-7 reverse stock split effective August 31, changed its name to Brickell Biotech, Inc., and moved its headquarters to Boulder. August 30, 2019, was the last day of trading under VICL, and the split-adjusted shares began trading on the NASDAQ Capital Market under the ticker BBI on September 3, 2019.

As Brickell, the company advanced sofpironium bromide and later sold its rights to the drug to Botanix Pharmaceuticals. It renamed itself Fresh Tracks Therapeutics and adopted the ticker FRTX, but with few remaining programs its board approved a plan of dissolution in September 2023. The company then left NASDAQ, its shares were quoted over the counter, and by 2024 it was seeking court approval to complete the wind-down.