aibioHepion appoints James Liddy as a director
Tickers HEPA
The board approved the appointment on August 19, 2026, effective immediately. The filing says no arrangements tie his selection to any other person.
Key facts
- Company
- Hepion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTC: HEPA)
- News type
- Company Updates
- Primary source
- Hepion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. 8-K (2026-08-20)
Hepion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. said its board of directors approved the appointment of James Liddy as a director of the company, effective immediately. The change is reported in a Form 8-K dated August 19, 2026, and filed on August 20, 2026. The 8-K is signed by Gary Stetz, Interim Chief Executive Officer.
The appointment
The filing states that there are no arrangements or understandings between Mr. Liddy and any other person under which he was selected as a director. It also states that there are no transactions between the company and Mr. Liddy that would have to be reported under Item 404(a) of Regulation S-K. The 8-K reports the change under Item 5.02 and does not describe his background, committee assignments or compensation.
The filing contains no other items, so the appointment is the only event it reports.
The company and its history
Hepion's annual report on Form 10-K, filed March 12, 2026, describes the company as a medical diagnostic company headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey. Before that, the company focused on rencofilstat, formerly CRV431, a cyclophilin inhibitor for chronic liver disease.
The company wound down its ASCEND-NASH trial beginning April 19, 2024, after it said it did not have access to sufficient funding to complete the study as designed. The trial closed in August 2024. On May 26, 2025, the company agreed to a patent and associated assets sale to Panetta Partners Limited. Panetta bought the rencofilstat patents, know-how, clinical trial data and drug product for a nominal amount and agreed to contingent payments to stockholders through a contingent value right. The 10-K lists those payments as $500,000 on FDA approval of a first new drug application, $1,000,000 on net sales above US$350,000,000, and $3,000,000 on net sales above US$750,000,000.
The 10-K also gives the terms of the New Day license. The company paid $525,000 in cash and $270,629 in shares of common stock, with up to $17.15 million in milestone payments and royalties on net sales in the upper single to low double digits. The company recorded an impairment loss of $402,746 on the New Day assets after projecting that cash flows over the first two years would not recover the allocated cost.
The 10-K says the company has no commercialization or sales and marketing capabilities and no plans to build them internally. It also says the company does not own or operate any facilities in which it can formulate and manufacture its product candidates.
Under the Cirna license, the company will pay up to $2,350,000 in milestone payments, up to $4,500,000 in sales milestone payments and a royalty on net sales in the low single digits, plus certain patent expenses.
Financial position
Financial data tagged in the company's SEC filings show research and development expense of $445,512 for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, compared with $11.8 million for 2024. Net income (loss) was negative $8.3 million for 2025 and negative $13.2 million for 2024. Cash from operations was negative $3.3 million for 2025 and negative $18.2 million for 2024.
Year-end cash and cash equivalents were $1.8 million at the end of 2025 and $406,408 at the end of 2024. At June 30, 2026, cash and cash equivalents were $1.6 million, according to the company's 10-Q.
The 8-K does not describe any further board changes or planned company actions. It tells readers nothing about Mr. Liddy's experience, so there is no way to judge what he adds. The company he joins has no sales capability, wrote off $402,746 on diagnostic assets it licensed, and held $1.6 million in cash at June 30, 2026 against $3.3 million of cash used in operations in 2025.