Company closure

Six biotechs based in California, Massachusetts, Washington and Denmark had to halt drug development efforts this year. One of their CEOs is now in an interim chief executive role at another biotech.

The FDA advised IO Biotech last year to hold off on filing an approval application for its cancer vaccine Cylembio, pointing to a failed Phase 3 study in frontline advanced melanoma. The biotech has now gone under.

While an anonymous source tied the closure to shortcomings in the FDA’s new pathway, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services pushed back on the suggestion.

After a slow 2024, the biotech shell company Concentra Biosciences is back, offering to buy four biotechs in the past month and seven so far this year.

iTeos expects to absorb nearly $25 million in one-time costs for severance and termination payments. The biotech had 173 full-time employees at the end of 2024.

The cell engineering company, co-founded by oncologist and writer Siddhartha Mukherjee, does not see a path forward for its pipeline of early-stage cell therapies for two different types of cancer.

After multiple rounds of layoffs that cut Kronos down to just 10 people, the small molecule biotech has accepted a buyout offer from Kevin Tang’s Concentra Biosciences.