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iTeos Therapeutics' strategic review from just days ago culminated in a decision to wind down the company's operations and sell off its remaining assets and intellectual property, the biotech announced May 28.
In an SEC filing on May 27, iTeos noted that it expected to absorb certain charges associated with the closure, though was yet "unable to make a good faith estimate of the total amount" of such costs. Nevertheless, the company anticipated expenses of around $21.8 million to $24.7 million associated with severance and employee termination costs. As of the end of 2024, iTeos had 173 full-time employees, most of whom were involved in R&D.
Just two weeks ago, the company lost a powerhouse partner in GSK after the anti-TIGIT therapy on which they were partnered, belrestotug, showed disappointing midstage findings. iTeos CEO Michel Detheux at the time said the decision to discontinue the development of belrestotug was mutual, though its effects weighed much heavier on his business. iTeos was forced to launch a targeted strategic review to identify ways to maximize remaining capital and value for shareholders.
In its first-quarter earnings report last month, the company noted that it still had $624.3 million in cash and investments, enough to keep it afloat through 2027.
AbbVie's aesthetics arm Allergan Aesthetics is laying off 202 employees at its Irvine, California, site, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification notice posted last week.
It's unclear how many full-time employees Allergan has—AbbVie does not report such figures in its annual filings—but there are around 2,100 associated members on the unit's LinkedIn page. The workforce reduction will take effect on July 22 as per the WARN notice. In total, AbbVie had roughly 55,000 employees across more than 70 countries as of the end of 2024.
The Orange County Business Journal noted last week that most of the affected employees work remotely, with only 19 present on-site at the Irvine facility. The layoffs will involve sales employees, data engineers and product managers across many different divisions, as per the Journal.
The layoffs come after Allergan's revamped loyalty program failed to return the results it had expected. In October 2024, Allergan lifted the veil on its Allē program, which gave out points and rewards to patients that they could apply to legacy products such as Botox and Juvéderm. The goal was to encourage patients to get treated more often and build loyalty, benefiting providers.
In connection with a pipeline shift involving its lead candidate, Boundless Bio is cutting 33% of its workforce, the company announced May 23. The San Diego–based biotech had 64 employees as of March 21, according to its annual report, meaning the layoffs could affect around 21 people.
Boundless expects to mostly complete the workforce reduction in the second quarter and to incur about $1.2 million in related costs, it noted in a May 23 SEC filing. The company anticipates the move will help extend its operating runway into the first half of 2028. Boundless had cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $138.3 million as of March 31.
Regarding its pipeline, the biotech is discontinuing its monotherapy and combination arms of BBI-355 in its POTENTIATE clinical trial after disappointing Phase I/II results and based on "market considerations." BBI-355, an oral selective CHK1 inhibitor, was designed to target replication stress in oncogene-amplified cancers.
Boundless will now evaluate the CHK1 inhibitor and BBI-825, an oral selective ribonucleotide reductase inhibitor, as a combination therapy in the POTENTIATE trial. The company expects to start clinical development in the second half of 2025. Boundless has also named BBI-940 as the development candidate for its novel kinesin program and expects to submit an investigational new drug submission in the first half of 2026. The program targets a previously undrugged kinesin involved in DNA segregation, including extrachromosomal DNA segregation during mitosis, according to the company.
After its anti-amyloid antibody birtamimab missed its primary endpoint in the Phase III AFFIRM-AL trial, Prothena is evaluating business options that include an "expected substantial workforce reduction," the company announced May 23. The biotech will provide more details regarding the strategic review in June.
Prothena had 163 employees as of Dec. 31, 116 of whom worked in research and development, according to its annual report. The Dublin-based company's U.S. operations are in Brisbane, California.
In its May 23 announcement, Prothena also noted it's discontinuing development of birtamimab, which was unable to significantly improve time to all-cause mortality in patients with AL amyloidosis in the AFFIRM-AL trial. The move includes terminating the open-label extension phase of the trial.
Prothena had previously tested birtamimab in the Phase III VITAL study, enrolling 260 newly diagnosed patients with AL amyloidosis who had not yet undergone treatment. The study was discontinued in April 2018 for futility. Full data, released a year later, confirmed that birtamimab did not significantly increase time to all-cause mortality or cardiac hospitalization.
In the first quarter of 2025, Prothena reported a net loss of $60.2 million, lower than its $72.2 million deficit during the same period a year prior. As of March 31, the company had $418.8 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash with no debt.
Citing "external forces" and the need to "sharpen its focus and generate efficiencies in our operations," Eikon Therapeutics on Wednesday announced a 15% reduction in force. The biotech announced the layoffs in a post on LinkedIn but, as of writing, has yet to issue a press release or a regulatory submission regarding the matter.
In an interview with Endpoints News in February, Eikon CEO Roger Perlmutter said the company had approximately 425 employees, meaning Wednesday's layoffs would affect at most 64 people. The company has offices in New York, New Jersey and California but did not reveal which sites would be affected by the staff cuts. According to a California Worker Retraining Notification Act notice, 55 employees were let go at Eikon's Millbrae, California, headquarters effective July 21.
The layoffs come even after the biotech raised an initial sum of $350.7 million in its Series D financing round in February. That funding brought Eikon's total haul to over $1.1 billion since its founding in 2019. In its LinkedIn post on Wednesday, Eikon pointed to "government funding cuts" and "reduced investment in the global biotechnology sector" as reasons necessitating the workforce reduction.
Update (May 22): This entry was updated to add the number of employees let go in California.
In an effort to reduce its "cash burn rate," Schr?dinger on Tuesday announced it would part ways with 60 employees, corresponding to approximately 7% of its workforce. The company also announced that its chief financial officer, Geoffrey Porges, will step down from his role, effective June 6, until which time he will work with Schr?dinger to ensure a smooth transition.
Richie Jain, senior vice president for strategic finance and head of corporate and business development, will succeed Porges.
Schr?dinger, a New York-based biotech with an office in Oregon, is focused on using its proprietary computational platform to aid drug discovery. It has three clinical assets, all of which are in Phase I development and target various malignant diseases. The company has not specified which sites Tuesday's layoffs will affect—as of writing BioSpace has not seen WARN notices from Schr?dinger in New York or Oregon.
Earlier this month, the biotech revealed it had around 900 employees across 15 sites globally. In the first quarter, Schr?dinger reported a net loss of $59.8 million.
As part of a strategic restructuring that includes deprioritizing its chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) programs, Prime Medicine is cutting about 25% of its staff and saying goodbye to its CEO, who resigned, the company announced May 19. The Cambridge, Massachusetts–based biotech had 214 full-time employees as of Dec. 31, 2024, according to an SEC filing, meaning the layoffs could affect about 54 people.
The gene editing company did not say when the cuts are effective nor which locations are impacted. Prime has lab and office space not only in Cambridge but also in Watertown, Massachusetts. As to the leadership change, CEO Keith Gottesdiener is stepping down immediately, according to the announcement. Prime has named Chief Financial Officer Allan Reine CEO.
Regarding its CGD programs, the company reported initial positive data from a Phase I/II clinical trial of PM359 but noted that it’s exploring options for continued clinical development of the therapy outside of the company. It’s also stopping further efforts in X-linked CGD.
Moving forward, Prime is focused on advancing in vivo programs to cure genetic liver diseases Wilson’s disease and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, according to the announcement. The biotech expects clinical data from both programs in 2027. Prime is also continuing work on its in vivo cystic fibrosis program and developing prime edited CAR T products for hematology, immunology and oncology in partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb. The company announced its deal with BMS, worth a potential $3.5 billion, in September.
In its May 19 announcement, Prime noted that cost-cutting moves including the layoffs are intended to significantly decrease operating expenses and cash burn, nearly halving expected financial needs through 2027.
To extend its cash runway into the second half of 2027 and focus resources on clinical programs, San Francisco–based Allogene Therapeutics is laying off 28% of employees, according to a May 13 SEC filing. The biotech, which is developing allogeneic CAR T products for cancer and autoimmune disease, had 229 employees as of March 1, according to an earlier filing, meaning the cuts could involve around 64 people.
Allogene, which has office and lab space in San Francisco along with a cell therapy manufacturing facility in Newark, California, did not specify which locations the layoffs affect. However, given the company noted that it’s reducing manufacturing operations, the Newark site is likely impacted. The biotech expects to mostly complete the layoffs by the end of the second quarter.
As part of its path forward, Allogene is looking to advance two clinical trials to key inflection points but announced delays to those programs in a May 13 press release. The company has pushed back to the first half of 2026 the lymphodepletion regimen selection and futility analysis for its Phase II trial for cemacabtagene ansegedleucel (cema-cel) as a first line consolidation therapy for large B-cell lymphoma. It’s also shifted timing for an initial update from a Phase I trial for its autoimmune CAR T product to the first half of 2026 to allow for biomarker and clinical proof-of-concept data.
Allogene estimates it will incur about $3.3 million in cash-based expenses related to the workforce reduction. The company had a net loss of $59.7 million for the first quarter and an accumulated deficit of $1.9 billion as of March 31, according to its most recent SEC filing. It had $335.5 million in cash and cash equivalents and investments as of March 31.
Despite having what CEO Warner Biddle called an “exceptional start” to the year, Kyverna Therapeutics had to downsize by 16% in the first quarter. As of March 31, the biotech had 119 full-time employees, as per an SEC filing.
The layoffs are part of Kyverna’s effort to “streamline” its operations and support the development of its late-stage pipeline, while also extending its cash runway into 2027, the biotech announced on Tuesday, alongside its first-quarter earnings report.
Kyverna is advancing KYV-101, an investigational CD19 CAR T therapy for stiff person syndrome, for which the company has recently completed enrollment into the pivotal Phase II trial. KYV-101 is also being developed for myasthenia gravis. Kyverna has wrapped up an end-of-Phase II meeting with the FDA and has aligned with the regulator regarding late-stage development.
In the first quarter, Kyverna posted a net loss of $44.6 million, plunging it deeper into the red; during the same time period last year, the company’s net loss was $26.7 million. As of March 31, the biotech had $242.6 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, which should be enough to last it through key catalysts, including the filing of its first Biologics License Application and Phase III myasthenia gravis study, according to Tuesday’s press release.
Flagging what CEO Douglas Onsi called the “difficult market environment,” immune specialist Leap Therapeutics will lay off approximately half of its workforce.
The biotech made the announcement alongside its first-quarter 2024 earnings report, where it posted a net loss of $15.4 million, falling further into the red compared to the same period in 2024, during which it was operating with a $13.8 million deficit. Leap pointed to heightened R&D expenses as the reason for the increase in its loss.
Tuesday’s layoffs, alongside other strategic measures, will allow Leap to focus its resources on its investigational WNT blocker, sirexatamab. The biotech is running a Phase II trial of the drug candidate, in combination with bevacizumab, for the treatment of colorectal cancer, with an eye toward advancing into Phase III development. Leap will prioritize its preclinical neutralizing antibody, FL-501, which it is positioning as a therapy for cachexia in cancer.
The biotech had $32.7 million in cash and cash equivalents at the end of Q1.
Atara Biotherapeutics continues to shed its staff, announcing on Monday that it will downsize by approximately 30%, leaving only 23 employees behind who are “essential to executing on the Company’s strategic priorities,” according to an SEC filing.
This is the third time that Atara has downsized just this year. In January, Atara halved its headcount after the FDA rejected its blood cancer therapy Ebvallo. Then again in March, the biotech shrank its staff roster by half, while also discontinuing the development of two CAR T programs for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and systemic lupus erythematosus.
Monday’s reduction in force comes after the FDA last week released its clinical holds on Ebvallo, which it had placed in January due to manufacturing compliance issues.
Atara expects to complete this latest round of layoffs by August. It has forecasted a one-time charge of around $1.4 million, primarily associated with severance and other employee benefits.
Bayer laid off some 2,000 employees in the first quarter of 2025, CEO Bill Anderson revealed in a media call May 13, alongside the presentation of the company’s first quarter earnings results.
“We are doing this change in our operating model across the company, in all three divisions,” Chief Financial Officer Wolfgang Nickl explained on the call. “There is a very keen focus more on the level of positions that are being reduced. They’re mostly management positions.”
Since first kicking off a sweeping reorganization initiative that began in July 2023, Bayer has let go of some 11,000 employees, Anderson noted on the call. This effort, he added, has made the company “l(fā)eaner, faster and more productive,” while simultaneously allowing Bayer to free up resources “so our teams can flow them to the highest-impact work.”
It’s unknown exactly when in the first quarter the 2,000 employees were laid off. A Bayer spokesperson told BioSpace the company reports headcount changes only on a quarterly or annual—not monthly—basis.
As part of its redeployment of about $20 million in capital from preclinical and noncardiac pipeline activities to its lead cardiac programs, Lexeo Therapeutics in April laid off roughly 15% of its employees, the company announced May 12. The New York–based biotech had 75 full-time employees as of March 31, according to an SEC filing, meaning the layoffs could affect around 11 employees.
Lexeo expects its updated capital structure will allow it to pursue key milestones for its clinical-stage pipeline, more quickly initiate a registrational study for investigational gene therapy LX2006—one of its lead cardiac programs—by early 2026 and maintain its runway into 2027. The company did not identify which parts of its pipeline the redeployment affects. Its website lists two cardiac programs in the preclinical stage and three Alzheimer’s therapies, only one of which is in clinical stage development.
The layoff news comes about a month after Lexeo shared that LX2006 can decrease the size and thickness of the left ventricle by one-fourth in patients with Friedreich’s ataxia cardiomyopathy. In its May 12 announcement, the company noted that it expects to initiate the registrational study for LX2006 by early 2026, with a potential efficacy readout in 2027.
In a bid to lower its spending by $50 million this year, 10x Genomics on Monday announced an 8% headcount reduction. As of December 31, 2024, the biotech had 1,306 full-time employees across its global operations, as per an SEC filing, meaning Monday’s layoffs would affect roughly 100 staff.
According to its SEC document, 10x Genomics expects to absorb between $5.5 million and $6.5 million in one-time costs, primarily related to severance payments. The company expects to complete these payments by the end of the third quarter.
10x Genomics announced the layoffs alongside its first-quarter earnings report on Monday. In the first three months of 2025, the biotech earned $154.9 million. It recorded a net loss $34.4 million in the quarter, smaller than its $59.9 million deficit during the same period the year prior. By the end of the quarter, 10x Genomics had $426.9 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. It did not say how long its cash runway would last.
Sanofi has turned its back on its partner IGM Biosciences, forcing the small California biotech to enact drastic strategic measures, including an 80% reduction in force. The company disclosed the layoffs—and the closure of most of its remaining lab and office facilities—in an SEC filing May 8. It noted that the moves would preserve cash.
According to its annual report, IGM had 149 full-time employees at the end of 2024. In January, the biotech reduced its workforce by 100 people, corresponding to 73% of its headcount, leaving it with 37 full-time staff. The new cuts leave IGM with around seven employees.
In its SEC filing, the company noted that Sanofi had informed it of the decision to walk away on May 5. The contract will formally end 30 days after the notice. IGM did not provide a specific reason for the termination, only revealing in its filing that the companies “concluded that conducting further activities under the Agreement was not in the interests of either party.”
IGM also noted in the filing that “The Company continues to evaluate potential strategic alternatives and reorganization options.” It did not specify what these options might be.
Looking to streamline operations, sharpen its focus on key priorities and extend its runway into 2027, insitro has cut 22% of its workforce, leaving a team of about 230 employees, the biotech announced May 7. The layoffs affect around 65 people.
“While challenging, this action amidst current macroeconomic uncertainty enables the advancement of our first-in-class pipeline in metabolic disease and neuroscience, ensures clinic readiness in 2026, and supports our continued investment in our key differentiator—innovation at the intersection of advanced AI/ML and data integration and generation at scale for novel biology discovery and drug development,” the San Francisco–based company said in its LinkedIn announcement.
In a separate LinkedIn post, insitro CEO Daphne Koller called May 7 one of the hardest days of her career as a chief executive officer and pointed to the “current tumultuous market environment” as driving the decision to lay off employees.
Rallybio is laying off nine employees, about 40% of its total headcount, as it reels from the loss of its lead asset, the biotech announced in its first-quarter earnings report May 8.
The terminations will be “substantially complete” by the end of the second quarter, according to the press release. Rallybio expects to absorb roughly $1.7 million in one-time costs, primarily linked to severance and benefit payments. This sum, however, excludes share-based compensations. At the end of Q1, the biotech had $54.5 million on hand, which it expects can keep it afloat into the first half of 2027.
Last month, Rallybio was forced to drop its former lead molecule RLYB212 following its disappointing pharmacokinetic performance in a Phase II trial. The candidate, an investigational monoclonal antibody, was being trialed for a rare bleeding disorder called fetal and neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia, where a mother’s immune system attacks the fetus. In the mid-stage study, RLYB212 failed to reach its target concentration, or even the minimum level required for efficacy.
Shape Therapeutics has laid off an undisclosed number of employees as part of a six-month shift to a pipeline focus, Fierce Biotech reported. While the Seattle-based genomics medicines company lists a Boston location on its website, it is unclear if the layoffs affect one or both sites.
Shape’s interim CEO and chief scientific officer, David Huss, told Fierce the business has chosen development candidates in Parkinson’s disease and ABCA4-related diseases and is conducting IND-enabling studies. The company does not list a pipeline on its website, where it notes that it’s realizing its vision of repairing the genetic causes of disease by combining artificial intelligence and RNA technology to make programmable RNA.
Cambridge, Massachusetts–based Vor Bio is bowing out amid a tough funding environment after examining the clinical data currently available for its assets. The company will let go of 147 employees, or 95% of its staff, and expects to complete the layoffs by the end of the second quarter, according to an SEC filing.
Vor, co-founded in 2015 by oncologist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee based on work from his Columbia University laboratory, was focused on cell therapies for acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome.
The company will now cease all clinical and manufacturing activity, including ongoing clinical trials, and look for ways to “maximize shareholder value.” This could include licensing or selling its assets, executing a merger, selling the company outright or some other “strategic action,” according to a May 8 announcement. The decision to wind down operations is based entirely on Vor’s available clinical data and a “challenging fundraising environment,” according to the release.
Teva is laying off some 2,900 of its employees worldwide, corresponding to an approximately 8% reduction in force, company executives announced Wednesday during the company’s first-quarter 2025 earnings report, according to various media reports.
The layoffs will run through 2027 and come even as the company announced its “ninth consecutive quarter of growth.” Teva has in place a strategic growth initiative that it expects to generate some $700 million in net savings by 2027, while also delivering a 30% operating margin, according to CEO Richard Francis.
“We’re accelerating innovative growth and strengthening our generics business, while streamlining our operations, sharpening our business and optimizing processes,” Francis added in a statement on Wednesday.
Teva made $3.9 billion in the first quarter, a 5% year-on-year increase driven by a stronger market performance of Austedo, its oral drug for Huntington’s disease chorea and tardive dyskinesia. Teva’s migraine drug Ajovy and its generics business both also contributed strongly to its Q1 performance. The company narrowed its full-year projections, now expecting to make $16.8 billion to $17.2 billion in 2025.
In a bid to keep its business afloat into 2027, Korro Bio is streamlining its operations, a move that will involve a 20% workforce reduction, the biotech announced Wednesday alongside its Q1 business report.
The layoffs, which will cost Korro $1.2 million in one-time payments, will help the biotech advance its assets to “key value inflection points.” In particular, Korro aims to complete its ongoing Phase I/IIa REWRITE trial, which is testing its investigational RNA-editing oligonucleotide KRRO-110 in alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. The company expects to wrap up REWRITE in 2026.
In the first quarter, Korro reported a net loss of $23.5 million, putting it deeper into the red: during the same period last year, it was operating with a $19.6 million loss. As of March 31, the biotech had $139.0 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, enough to support its operations into 2027.
Aside from KRRO-110, Korro is also working on its collaboration with Novo Nordisk, with which the biotech can advance up to two programs using its proprietary drug discovery platform. One of these programs will be for a yet-undisclosed cardiometabolic condition.
NGM Bio is cutting 85 employees, according to a San Francisco WARN Notice from last week. The layoffs, which will affect staff at its San Mateo County location, will take effect on June 30. The workforce reduction affects 75% of the workforce, Fierce Biotech reported May 12.
NGM is built around a “biology-centric drug discovery approach,” which it leverages to generate candidates with a “therapeutic area-agnostic mindset.” Its lead asset is the engineered hormone aldafermin, which is patterned after the FGF19 hormone and is in Phase II development for primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). The biotech is also working on therapies for cancer cachexia, solid tumors and the pregnancy-related complication hyperemesis gravidarum.
In February 2024, NGM announced a merger with affiliates of The Column Group, which is the biotech’s “l(fā)ongest and largest stockholder,” owning a 26% stake in NGM, according to a press announcement at the time. The move made NGM a privately held biotech. Months later, NGM closed a $122 million Series A financing round to support a registrational study for aldafefrmin in PSC.
Update (May 12): This entry was updated to change the percentage of employees affected based on an article published after this tracker entry published. A sentence that had estimated the percentage was therefore removed.
To help extend its cash runway into mid-2026 and further development of a key asset, Mersana Therapeutics is letting go of about 55% of its workforce, the company announced May 6. Mersana, which is developing antibody-drug conjugates targeting cancers of high unmet medical need, expects to mostly complete the cuts by the end of the third quarter.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts–based company had 102 full-time employees as of Dec. 31, according to a March 3 SEC filing, meaning the layoffs could leave the business with just under 50 employees. Mersana expects to incur about $4 million to $5 million in costs related to the workforce reduction.
With the move, the company is looking to further development of its site-specific ADC emiltatug ledadotin and will focus those efforts on breast cancer, according to the announcement. Mersana is also reducing research activities and eliminating its internal pipeline development efforts. The company noted it plans to continue supporting Phase I dose escalation work for its systemically administered ADC XMT-2056 and its ongoing collaborations with Johnson & Johnson and Merck KGaA.
As of Dec. 31, Mersana had an accumulated deficit of $895.6 million and cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $134.6 million, according to its March 3 SEC filing.
To reduce operating expenses and extend its cash runway into the fourth quarter, Biomea Fusion is cutting about 35% of its workforce, the company announced May 5. The biotech had 79 full-time employees as of March 31, according to an SEC filing on that date, meaning the layoffs could leave the business with around 50 employees.
Redwood City, California–based Biomea, a clinical-stage diabetes and obesity company, leases operating, laboratory and manufacturing space in Redwood City and San Carlos, California. The business is consolidating its workforce at its San Carlos research facility as of May 31, according to the announcement.
Moving forward, Biomea said it will focus development efforts and investments on icovamenib, a novel oral menin inhibitor for diabetes, and BMF-650, a next-generation oral GLP-1 receptor agonist. Regarding icovamenib, the biotech plans to meet with the FDA in the second half of the year to discuss a Phase IIb trial design and requirements for advancing the drug into later-stage clinical development. Biomea expects to submit an investigational new drug (IND) application for BMF-650 in the second half of 2025.
The company is also exploring strategic partnerships for its acute leukemia asset BMF-500, whose survival data from a dose escalation study are expected in the second quarter. The move to conclude its oncology efforts with BMF-500 was expected, as Biomea announced in January that it was shifting its focus to diabetes and obesity medicines.
As Unity Biotechnology evaluates strategic alternatives that could include a merger, sale or wind down, it’s letting go of its entire workforce, the company announced May 5. Unity had 16 employees as of Dec. 31, according to a March 7 SEC filing.
The San Francisco–based biotech, which has been developing therapeutics to slow, halt or reverse diseases of aging, expects to mostly complete the workforce reduction by May 15, according to a May 5 SEC filing. Unity estimated it will incur about $3.7 million in costs related to the layoffs. The company had cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $16.9 million as of March 31.
Unity announced the staff cuts alongside 36-week results from the Phase IIb ASPIRE clinical trial of intravitreal UBX1325 in patients with diabetic macular edema who had poor vision despite prior treatment. Unity noted that the investigational eye therapy was statistically noninferior to Regeneron’s Eylea at week 36 and generally outperformed its competitor in subjects with moderately aggressive disease. In March, Unity announced that topline data from the Phase IIb ASPIRE study showed that UBX1325 showed noninferiority at an 88% confidence interval, short of the 90% prespecified threshold for the study’s primary endpoint.
Mammoth Biosciences is cutting 24 employees as it restructures, Fierce Biotech reported. The Brisbane, California–based biotech’s CEO, Trevor Martin, confirmed the news to Fierce in an emailed statement.
Mammoth has 183 associated members on its LinkedIn People page, meaning the cuts may affect around 13% of its workforce.
Martin told Fierce that the company is focusing efforts on ensuring it has the right organization to drive internal programs to the clinic, support its partnerships and push forward innovative research to develop new curative therapies. The company lists Regeneron, Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Bayer as its partners on its website.
On May 5, Mammoth announced it had nominated its first clinical development candidate, MB-111. The company hopes the drug candidate will become a first-in-class one-time treatment for patients with high-triglyceride diseases, including familial chylomicronemia syndrome and severe hypertriglyceridemia. MB-111 uses CasPhi—an ultracompact CRISPR in vivo gene editing system—encapsulated in a lipid nanoparticle for delivery to the liver after IV administration.
Bristol Myers Squibb is making yet more cuts to its Lawrenceville, New Jersey, workforce, this time axing 516 people, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice. The layoffs will come in multiple waves starting May 9 and ending March 27, 2026.
BMS has its headquarters
BMS has its headquarters and a location housing its commercialization and late-stage development teams in Lawrenceville. It was not immediately clear if the cuts affect both sites, and the company did not provide a response to a BioSpace question about that workforce reduction prior to publication of this article.
This is the third round of layoffs BMS has disclosed for Lawrenceville in 2025, bringing that area’s total number of affected employees this year to 806.
The pharma has made significant cuts to its workforce recently. In April 2024, the company announced it would eliminate about 2,200 jobs by the end of last year as part of an effort to save approximately $1.5 billion through 2025. In February, BMS announced that the strategic reorganization would go even deeper, with an additional $2 billion in savings through 2027. Those savings will come from organizational design changes and enhanced operational efficiency, according to a fourth quarter earnings release.
About two months after discontinuing the Phase IIb/III BEACON-IPF study of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis drug candidate bexotegrast, Pliant Therapeutics announced it’s cutting roughly 45% of its workforce. The move is meant to help extend the San Francisco–based biotech’s cash runway to support execution of late-stage clinical trials. The company, which develops oral integrin inhibitors for fibrotic diseases, did not say how long that runway will last.
Pliant had 171 full-time employees—including 117 in research and development—as of Dec. 31, according to a March 3 SEC filing, meaning the cuts could affect about 77 employees. The biotech expects to mostly complete the layoffs by the end of the second quarter, incurring about $3.6 million in related costs, according to a May 1 SEC filing.
In February, Pliant voluntarily suspended dosing and enrollment in the Phase IIb/III BEACON-IPF study of bexotegrast following a prespecified data review by an independent data safety monitoring board. The company did not identify the reasons behind the board’s recommendation but noted that it was reviewing BEACON-IPF’s data to understand the rationale behind it.
Pliant in March announced it was discontinuing the trial following that review due to an imbalance in unadjudicated IPF-related adverse events between the treatment and placebo groups. The company also noted it would evaluate next steps for the drug candidate’s development and would consider additional dose-ranging Phase IIb studies in pulmonary fibrosis and potentially other nonrespiratory indications, including liver diseases.
While announcing first quarter results, Arvinas said that it is ending two Phase III trials for its cancer molecule vepdegestrant while laying off “approximately one-third” of its staff, in an effort “to streamline operations across the organization and enable the efficient progression of the Company’s portfolio.”
In a filing with the SEC, the company said that the streamlining would be completed by the end of the second quarter 2025 and would cost about $10 million in severance and other one-time employee termination benefit expenses. At the end of 2024, Arvinas said that it had approximately 430 full-time employees, suggesting that layoffs would impact about 143 people.
About two years ago, Bristol Myers Squibb bought a manufacturing plant in the Chicago suburbs from Novartis, with plans to make viral vectors for BMS’ CAR T therapeutics there.
Now, BMS is shutting the plant down as part of BMS’ ongoing cost-cutting spree. The company is laying off 133 employees, with the first layoff date on June 1, according to a Worker Retraining Notification Act notice.
Update (May 12): This entry was updated to note the number of employees affected based on a WARN notice published after this tracker entry published.
As it focuses resources on Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) clinical candidates and key preclinical programs, Entrada Therapeutics disclosed layoff and hiring plans in an April 29 SEC filing. Although the biotech will hire to support a planned global clinical trial for Duchenne, it will also reduce research staff, affecting about 20% of its workforce.
The Boston-based biotech, which focuses on intracellular therapeutics, had 183 full-time employees as of Feb. 20, according to another SEC filing, meaning the cuts could affect about 37 people. Entrada expects to mostly complete the layoffs by the end of the second quarter and to incur about $2 million in related expenses. The company also noted in its April 29 filing that it should be able to maintain its current cash runway into the second quarter of 2027.
News of the layoffs comes just over two months after Entrada announced the FDA had removed a clinical hold on DMD candidate ENTR-601-44, the biotech’s exon 44 skipping oligonucleotide. The agency issued that hold in December 2022. Entrada did not provide a reason for the FDA’s decision at that time.
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