Novan is now a post-confirmation liquidation case, with Alan D. Halperin administering the Liquidating Trust and the current docket focused on claims cleanup rather than operating restructuring. The debtor filed chapter 11 on July 17, 2023, after a liquidity squeeze at a medical dermatology business that had accumulated significant losses, relied on commercial products and SB206 development, and faced 2023 supply-chain disruptions that impaired revenues and vendor support; the first-day record also described prepetition secured bridge financing from Ligand and a proposed Ligand-backed postpetition financing and sale path built around a stalking-horse transaction after a prepetition marketing process Stafford First Day DeclarationDkt. 4.
The case moved quickly from preservation financing into a sale-and-liquidation framework. The debtors proposed a combined disclosure statement and chapter 11 liquidation plan in December 2023 Combined Disclosure Statement and Plan of LiquidationDkt. 459, then filed plan-supplement materials establishing a Liquidating Trust, appointing Halperin as trustee, and placing Dr. Reddy's Laboratories and Aclaris Therapeutics on the initial oversight committee Amended Plan Supplement NoticeDkt. 543. On January 26, 2024, the court confirmed the liquidation plan, approved the disclosure statement, vested remaining assets in the trust, preserved the trustee's authority to pursue causes of action and administer distributions, and projected only limited unsecured recoveries, with no recovery for subordinated claims or equity .
The live posture is claims administration. On May 22, 2026, the trustee filed certifications resolving the seventh and eighth omnibus claim objections, including modifications for certain state tax and health-agency claims Seventh Omnibus Objection CertificationDkt. 876 Eighth Omnibus Objection CertificationDkt. 877. The court entered orders the same day granting the trustee's substantive objection to no-liability, overstated, and misclassified claims Seventh Omnibus Claims OrderDkt. 879 and the non-substantive objection to late-filed and unsupported claims Eighth Omnibus Claims OrderDkt. 880. With those orders entered, the scheduled May 27, 2026 hearing was cancelled Hearing Cancellation NoticeDkt. 881, leaving the case on a trust-administration track toward final claim reconciliation and distributions under the confirmed liquidation plan.
