Aside from announcing layoffs, Sensei has decided to terminate its R&D work. The biotech has $25 million on hand, and continues to evaluate its strategic alternatives.
Late last month, Sensei Biotherapeutics warned that it would be implementing an additional workforce reduction as it conducted a strategic review of its business. The Boston-based biotech has now finally revealed how deep those cuts will be.
In its third-quarter earnings report on Friday, Sensei announced that it will downsize by roughly 65% and maintain only a “small team of employees” to look for strategic alternatives and continue compliance with financial reporting requirements. The biotech has also decided to end all its R&D operations, including work on its lead asset, the antibody solnerstotug. Sensei’s remaining staff will also oversee the “orderly cessation of development activities,” according to the announcement.
As per its annual report, Sensei had 14 full-time employees and one part-time worker as of March 24, 2025. This means that the latest round of layoffs will affect around nine people.
In Q3, Sensei operated $4.6 million in the red, versus its $7.3 million loss during the same period last year. As of Sept. 30, the biotech still had $25 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, though it did not specify how long it foresees its runway will last. Sensei continues to evaluate its alternatives, according to Friday’s release, which include a merger, a sale or licensing arrangements for its assets or “an orderly wind-down of operations.”
The biotech’s lead asset was solnerstotug, a conditionally active monoclonal antibody that targets and blocks the VISTA checkpoint, which otherwise suppresses the action of T cells. With this mechanism of action, solnerstotug can help boost the immune system’s anti-cancer activity.
Sensei was running a Phase I/II study to test solnerstotug, both alone and in combination with Regeneron’s PD-1 blocker Libtayo, in advanced solid tumors. But the last year has been difficult for Sensei. In November 2024, the biotech conducted a resource realignment initiative to throw more support behind the drug—a move that included a 46% headcount reduction. At the time, the biotech expected the restructuring to extend its runway into the second quarter of 2026.
Aside from solnerstotug, Sensei also has three preclinical candidates targeting various cancer-related proteins for the treatment of solid tumors.
Overall, 2025 has been brutal on the layoff front. Against a background of a near-constant churn of companies letting people go, the third quarter of this year saw a 280% year-on-year surge in terminations, according to a tally by BioSpace. This is in large part due to massive retrenchments from Merck, CSL and Novo Nordisk.
