Founded in 2003 and formerly headquartered in East Norriton Township, Pennsylvania before moving to Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 2012, Tengion went public in 2010, after its stock has been approved for listing on the NASDAQ, through a $26 million IPO to help advance its research and development activities. Some of the groundbreaking regenerative medicine technologies of Dr. Anthony Atala, director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, were the core from where those research and development activities developed. 
On September 4, 2012, Tengion received a notice from NASDAQ stating that the company had not regained compliance with NASDAQ Listing Rule 5550(b)(1) and that its common stock would cease trading on the NASDAQ Capital Market effective on September 6, 2012, and would begin trading on the OTCQB tier of the OTC Marketplace. The company was bought by former executives and creditors after declaring bankruptcy in 2014.