Biotech
Wednesday, August 23rd, 2023 12:30 pm EDT
Agenus has become the latest biotechnology company to turn to layoffs this year, announcing Wednesday a plan to reduce its workforce by 25% and significantly dial back its cancer drug research.
The Lexington, Massachusetts-based biotech plans to cut just over 85 jobs in the restructuring, a move that is expected to save the company about $40 million by the end of the year. It’s also temporarily suspending all of its preclinical and clinical-stage research so it can pool its resources towards its most advanced work, a combination of two cancer immunotherapies known as botensilimab and balstilimab.
The medicines make up a regimen that is being studied in multiple tumor types. Agenus could seek an approval in colorectal cancer next year.
“By zeroing in on [botensilimab and balstilimab], we expect to expedite regulatory approval and availability for healthcare providers and patients in need,” said Chairman and CEO Garo Armen, in a statement. “Our decision to streamline operations reflects our commitment to the success of these programs while optimizing shareholder value.”
The company had $175 million in cash at the end of the second quarter, enough to fund operations for about a year.
Agenus has been working on cancer medicines for nearly three decades. The company was co-founded in 1994 and has been publicly traded since 2000. Over that time, it’s churned through a variety of cancer drug approaches and established a lengthy list of partners, among them Merck & Co., Gilead Sciences and Bristol Myers Squibb. But the company has also changed course multiple times and, in 2021, pulled a drug application after Merck beat it to market with a similar medicine. It doesn’t have any approved products, and shares are currently worth less than $2 apiece.
Agenus is now pinning its hopes on botensilimab and balstilimab, which go after two well-known cancer immunotherapy targets: CTLA-4 and PD-1, respectively. Agenus has argued that botensilimab may be superior to older, similar CTLA-4 inhibitors, like Bristol Myers’ Yervoy, and is testing it alongside balstilimab in a variety of settings. But Agenus’ dwindling cash reserves have left it without the resources to fund other work.
”We believe the prioritization is prudent to ensure successful development of [the drug combination],” wrote Matt Phipps, an analyst with William Blair, in a note to investors on Wednesday.
The company’s partnered research isn’t affected by the restructuring. But after speaking with management, Phipps added that other in-house programs will be reevaluated in six to 12 months to determine which might be restarted “following what the company assumes will be a potential influx of capital” in the coming months.
In announcing the layoffs, Agenus joins a list of over 100 drugmakers that have cut jobs in 2023, according to BioPharma Dive data.
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