aibioProtagenic to end chief financial officer's employment on April 30, 2026
Tickers PTIX
The board notified Alexander Arrow, MD, on March 31, 2026, that his employment will be terminated effective April 30, 2026. The filing gives no reason for the decision.
Key facts
- Company
- Protagenic Therapeutics, Inc. (OTC: PTIX)
- News type
- Company Updates
- Primary source
- Protagenic Therapeutics Form 8-K
Protagenic Therapeutics, Inc. (OTC: PTIX) disclosed in a Form 8-K filed April 7, 2026 that its board of directors notified Alexander Arrow, MD, the company's Chief Financial Officer, on March 31, 2026, that his employment will be terminated effective April 30, 2026. Garo H. Armen, the company's Executive Chairman, signed the report, which is dated April 6, 2026. The filing gives no reason for the decision and does not name a successor or an interim arrangement for the finance function.
What the company develops
The company's annual report filed March 31, 2025 describes Protagenic as a company specializing in the discovery and development of therapeutics for stress-related neuropsychiatric and mood disorders. Its lead compound, PT00114, is a synthetic form of Teneurin Carboxy-terminal Associated Peptide, known as TCAP, which the report describes as an endogenous brain signaling peptide that can dampen overactive stress responses. The report says PT00114 has shown efficacy in preclinical models, meaning animal studies, of depression, anxiety, substance abuse and addiction, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Protagenic owns exclusive, worldwide rights to PT00114 through a license agreement with the University of Toronto, and it has an exclusive right to license additional intellectual property generated by Dr. David Lovejoy's laboratory there.
The report also describes the company's work on follow-on compounds in the TCAP family. It describes the mechanism as counterbalancing stress overdrive within the brain's stress response cascade, corroborated in preclinical animal models.
The clinical plan at the time
The report described a Phase I/IIa study of PT00114 in healthy volunteers and in patients with psychiatric illnesses, which commenced in the third quarter of 2023. The company said it expected to re-submit an investigational new drug (IND) application before starting the Phase IIa portion, to determine whether that portion could be conducted in the United States. The IND-enabling studies, including the preclinical efficacy data and a GLP toxicology study, were components of that regulatory submission.
Dr. Maurizio Fava, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, was named as the clinical development leader. The report said he designed the Phase I/II study and would serve as its principal investigator. The planned basket trial would start with a small cohort of healthy volunteers, followed by cohorts of patients with major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, opioid use disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. The company said the trial would use a classic sequential dose escalation design with cohort replication, and that safety and adverse events were the primary endpoint. Participants would be exposed for a maximum of 28 days. The report calls this the first in human study of TCAP, so no human efficacy data existed when it was written.
The report said the company expected to announce complete results of the multiple-dose portion of the Phase I trial in the second quarter of 2025, and its first set of Phase II efficacy results in the first quarter of 2026. It also said the basket trial structure offers the most efficient use of capital at an early stage of development.
Strategy and what comes next
The report listed five strategic milestones for the coming two years. They include advancing PT00114 through clinical trials in treatment resistant depression, substance use disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder; developing additional product candidates from the TCAP family; exploring efficacy in additional stress-related neuropsychiatric and mood disorders; building a nimble research, operational, clinical and commercial team; and assessing strategic partnerships, including in important international markets.
The April 30, 2026 effective date is the only future date in the filing. The 8-K gives no reason for the dismissal and no financial data, and does not say how the finance work will be covered. The report's own targets, multiple-dose results in the second quarter of 2025 and first Phase II efficacy results in the first quarter of 2026, were the company's expectations as of March 2025, and the 8-K does not report whether they were met.