aibioGRI Bio gets Nasdaq deficiency notice on minimum stockholders' equity requirement
Tickers GRI
Nasdaq told GRI Bio on November 26, 2025 that it does not meet the $2,500,000 stockholders' equity requirement for the Capital Market. The company has until January 10, 2026 to submit a compliance plan, and its annual report already carried a going-concern warning.
Key facts
- Company
- GRI Bio, Inc. (NASDAQ: GRI)
- News type
- Listings
- Primary source
- GRI Bio, Inc. Form 8-K filed December 2, 2025 (SEC EDGAR)
GRI Bio, Inc. (Nasdaq: GRI) disclosed on December 2, 2025 that it received a Nasdaq deficiency notice on its stockholders' equity. The company described the notice in a Form 8-K signed by Chief Financial Officer Leanne Kelly. The letter from the Listing Qualifications Department is dated November 26, 2025.
What the notice rests on
The notice is based on the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2025. Nasdaq Listing Rule 5550(b)(1) requires a company on the Capital Market to keep at least $2,500,000 of stockholders' equity when its listed securities have a market value under $35,000,000 and its annual net income is under $500,000. The 8-K does not state the company's current stockholders' equity, the market value of its listed shares, or its net income.
Under Nasdaq rules, GRI Bio had 45 calendar days, until January 10, 2026, to submit a plan to regain compliance. The company says it plans to submit one. If Nasdaq staff find the plan acceptable, they have discretion to grant an extension of 180 calendar days from the date of the notice. The 8-K says there can be no assurance that the plan will be accepted or, if it is, that GRI Bio will regain compliance.
If the staff rejects the plan, it will say so in writing and the common stock becomes subject to delisting. The company could then appeal to a Nasdaq Hearing Panel.
The going-concern warning
The company's annual report for 2024, filed March 14, 2025, says the report of its independent registered public accounting firm includes an explanatory paragraph indicating substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern.
The same report lists, among its forward-looking risks, its history of losses, its need for additional capital, and its possible inability to obtain that capital on acceptable terms or at all. It also lists the need to liquidate if the company fails to obtain adequate funding, which the report says could leave stockholders with no value for their investment. Another listed risk is the effect of reverse stock splits, including the February 2025 reverse split, on the price and trading of the common stock, which carries a par value of $0.0001.
The lead drug
GRI Bio describes itself as a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing therapies for diseases tied to dysregulated immune responses, including inflammatory, fibrotic and autoimmune disorders. Its lead candidate, GRI-0621, is an oral inhibitor of type 1 invariant Natural Killer T cells, known as iNKT cells. GRI-0621 is also an oral formulation of tazarotene, which is approved in the United States as a topical treatment for psoriasis and acne. The report says GRI-0621 has been evaluated in more than 1,700 patients as an oral product for up to 52 weeks, as of December 31, 2024.
The company is developing GRI-0621 for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive fibrotic lung disease. The report says the disease affects approximately 140,000 people in the United States, with up to 40,000 new cases a year. It also says neither of the two approved therapies has been associated with improvements in overall survival, and both have been linked to significant side effects that reduce adherence.
The report's evidence is preliminary. It describes GRI-0621 as well-tolerated and as inhibiting iNKT cell activity in subjects, based on preliminary data from its trials and earlier trials with oral tazarotene. The planned trial is a randomized, double-blind, multi-center Phase 2a biomarker study, not an efficacy trial. The company said it expected topline results from that study in the third quarter of 2025. The 8-K does not mention those results.
The second program
The pipeline also includes GRI-0803, a novel oral agonist of type 2 diverse Natural Killer T cells, which the company is developing for autoimmune disorders, mainly in lupus and multiple sclerosis. Chief Financial Officer Leanne Kelly signed the 8-K.