Eiger BioPharmaceuticals

Eiger BioPharmaceuticals

Eiger BioPharmaceuticals was founded to pursue treatments for serious rare diseases, creating a pipeline that included a hepatitis B virus therapeutic, a human growth hormone analogue for metabolic disorders, and an antiviral for chronic hepatitis delta. The firm used a business model of identifying promising drug candidates from academic labs and early-stage biotechs, then conducting clinical development independently or with partners. Its geographic footprint has been primarily US-based, with Palo Alto headquarters and clinical trials conducted in the US and Europe. By the mid-2020s, Eiger had accumulated substantial debt and faced a cash runway crisis after the failure of its lead hepatitis delta drug to achieve adequate trial endpoints. The firm disclosed in SEC filings that it was exploring strategic alternatives including a sale, merger, or dissolution if financing could not be secured. In April 2024, Eiger laid off most of its staff and halted operations after failing to find a buyer (per SEC filings, 2024). The company subsequently delisted from Nasdaq and was reported to be winding down in late 2024. Eiger had raised over $150 million from venture investors and public markets since its 2008 founding, but by 2024 its market capitalization had fallen to under $1 million. The firm's research collaborations included academic medical centers such as Stanford and Mount Sinai, and it maintained operations through a small team of approximately 30 employees prior to the wind-down. No philanthropic entities or separate investment vehicles are publicly associated with the firm. What distinguished Eiger was its ultra-lean development model: rather than building a large internal research organization, the company sourced its entire pipeline through licensing and acquisition of assets from academic labs and early-stage biotechs, then used contract research organizations (CROs) to run trials. This capital-minimal approach ultimately proved insufficient to overcome the scientific and regulatory risks inherent in rare-disease drug development.