Shareholders have permanently sunk an acquisition plan between MEI Pharma and Infinity, a deal in the works since February. Fifty-one percent of votes were against the transaction, resulting in the termination of the merger agreement.

“While we believe the benefits of the Infinity transaction were compelling for MEI stockholders, we appreciate and value the perspectives of our stockholders,” MEI CEO David Urso said, according to a Fierce Biotech report. “Our board and management team remain highly focused on the potential for capturing the stockholder value inherent in the company’s current development pipeline, which includes voruciclib and ME-344.”

Under the terms of the deal, Infinity, based in Cambridge, Mass., would have become a wholly owned subsidiary of MEI, giving MEI shareholders ownership of 58% of the combined company, Fierce Biotech reported.

“With clinical data expected from both of our clinical-stage pipeline programs around year-end and capital to support our near-term development plans, we are focused on the potential opportunities for creating stockholder value,” Urso added in Fierce Biotech's report.

The terms of the deal would’ve resulted in a cash balance of $100 million to fund operations until 2025, which “should have been enough to tick off some major readouts, including for immuno-oncology macrophage reprogramming candidate eganelisib, which is due to produce initial safety and survival data from a phase 2 trial of a combo with Keytruda in the second half of 2024,” the report stated.

“There’s also CDK9 inhibitor voruciclib, for which initial results are expected from a phase 1b trial of a combo treatment with Venclexta in patients with hematologic malignancies toward the end of this year. Finally, there’s ME-344, a tumor-selective mitochondrial inhibitor targeting the OXPHOS pathway, that is being evaluated in combination with Avastin in a phase 1b trial of patients with relapsed colorectal cancer that is also expected to read out toward the end of the year," the report continued.

News of the shareholder’s final conclusion comes after the merger overcame an “unsolicited proposal” from an investment group in May. Following the merger, the MEI group confirmed efforts to recover control of the biotech from its own board, according to the report.

“It’s tough news for Infinity, which revealed in March that the proposed combination with MEI could be the last chance to avoid bankruptcy as its lead clinical candidate eganelisib eats up remaining cash reserves,” Fierce Biotech reported.