Last month, biotech and pharma companies making or planning workforce cuts included three whose reductions will more than halve their workforces. Blueprint Medicines’ layoffs will affect the most employees.
The biopharma layoff picture improved year over year in August, based on BioSpace tallies. The number of biotech and pharma companies cutting or projecting they’ll cut their workforces fell 48% to 12, while affected employees plunged 90% to 526.
The sharp year-over-year decrease in impacted staff is because in August 2025, CSL announced it was cutting 15% of its workforce, a move estimated to affect around 4,350 employees. The Australian multinational’s layoffs were part of a restructuring meant to streamline operations and boost clinical and commercial performance. Without that workforce reduction, the number of people affected by job cuts in August 2025 would have been 991, a figure that still easily tops the 526 impacted last month.
In August 2026, the largest round of layoffs by staff count came at Blueprint Medicines, a subsidiary of France-based Sanofi. About a year after completing its $9.5 billion acquisition of Blueprint, Sanofi disclosed in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice that Blueprint is letting go of 229 employees at its Cambridge, Massachusetts, headquarters. The cuts will be effective Oct. 9, 2026, to June 25, 2027.
Encouraging year-over-year layoff data for 2026 is not confined to August alone. The number of biopharmas making or projecting cuts has fallen every month, and total affected employees has dropped six times.
It’s worth noting, however, that not all layoff data in August was positive. There were month-over-month increases. The number of biopharmas trimming staff rose from six to 12 and affected employees from 466 to 526. And, while the increase in impacted staff was small, at 60 people, the scope of Pfizer’s layoffs could be significant.
Pfizer announced last month that it’s adding $2.5 billion in cuts to an ongoing restructuring. The savings will mostly happen between 2027 and 2029, largely through technology and simplification efforts across the New York pharma’s commercial, research and development (R&D) and manufacturing functions. Pfizer will incur a one-time cost of $2 billion for digital enablement, implementation and severance. The company has not specified how many jobs it will cut.
Arsenal, aTyr, Lisata will put large dents into workforces
Of the 12 biopharmas that announced or disclosed layoffs in August, three are letting go of over half of their workforces: Arsenal Biosciences, aTyr Pharma and Lisata Therapeutics.
ArsenalBio is laying off 99 employees—“the majority of the company”—across its South San Francisco headquarters and Hayward, California, locations, a company spokesperson confirmed to BioSpace. The cuts may affect around 78% of the workforce, given the biotech had 127 employees a year ago after downsizing by 50%.
Most of the latest layoffs will affect ArsenalBio’s HQ, where 58 employees are being let go effective Oct. 29, according to a WARN notice. The cuts are tied to the company’s significant strategic shift to focus efforts on development of in vivo CAR T therapies.
aTyr is laying off about 60% of its workforce. The company announced the news last month, and a related SEC filing noted that the San Diego–based biotech will have around 20 employees left. aTyr is making the move to help focus resources on advancing its lead asset, efzofitimod, in interstitial lung disease (ILD), which causes inflammation and scarring in the lungs.
The biotech’s workforce changes include two executive departures. Chief Financial Officer Jill Broadfoot and General Counsel Nancy Denyes will step down Sept. 30 and transition to consultant roles. Brandon Yaras, vice president of finance, will become CFO Oct. 1.
Lisata has cut about 72% of its full-time workforce, the Basking Ridge, New Jersey–based biotech announced last month. Given the company had 21 full-time staffers as of Dec. 31, 2025, the layoffs may have affected around 15 employees. Lisata attributed the workforce reduction to its need to reduce operating expenses and preserve cash to pursue strategic alternatives following a failed planned merger with Kuva Labs. The biotech has filed a lawsuit against Houston-based Kuva, alleging that the company breached the merger agreement.
Like aTyr, Lisata’s layoffs affected the C-suite. Kristen Buck, executive vice president of research and development and chief medical officer, was let go Aug. 3.
5 companies’ cuts weren’t their first in the past year
For ArsenalBio, Blueprint Medicines, Ensoma, Indivior Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer, their layoffs announced or disclosed in August were not their first workforce reductions in the preceding 12 months.
- ArsenalBio cut 50% of its employees in September 2025, leaving the business with 127 people. The company was restructuring to extend its cash runway and position itself for its next phase of development, a spokesperson told Fierce Biotech. Added to the latest round of layoffs involving 99 employees, Arsenal’s two rounds of cuts will affect about 226 people.
- In November 2025, a few months after being acquired by Sanofi, a Sanofi spokesperson confirmed to BioSpace that an undisclosed number of Blueprint staffers would lose their jobs as part of a realignment initiative. Sanofi was prioritizing programs that aligned with its R&D strategy and offered the greatest patient value, according to the spokesperson. Blueprint’s latest round of layoffs will affect 229 people.
- Ensoma cut 50% of its staff, or 37 employees, in November 2025 to prioritize resources in the areas best poised to advance the Boston-based biotech’s mission, CEO Jim Burns announced in a LinkedIn post at the time. The number of people the company’s latest layoffs will affect is unknown.
- In August 2025, Indivior announced it was cutting an undisclosed number of employees as part of a sweeping multiyear initiative to maximize the potential of its North Chesterfield, Virginia–based business. The number of people the company’s latest layoffs will affect is also unknown. Those cuts are expected as part of a merger with Rockville, Maryland–based Supernus Pharmaceuticals.
- Pfizer disclosed in an August 2025 WARN notice that it was laying off 100 employees at its Bothell, Washington, site starting that month. The company told Fierce Pharma the move was part of a push to improve research and development productivity and efficiency, with a sharpened focus on opportunities. In December 2025, Bloomberg reported Pfizer was letting go of more than 200 employees across Switzerland as part of a continuing effort to slow its cash burn. Added together, those workforce reductions affected 300 people. The scope of the pharma’s latest round of layoffs is unknown.
This month, the first three companies reported to be letting go of employees—Merck, Novartis and TScan Therapeutics—have all had prior workforce cuts within the past year.
Layoff numbers exclude contract development and manufacturing organizations, contract research organizations, tools and services businesses and medical device firms. To tally the cuts, BioSpace compiles data for known workforce reductions. The number of employees affected is identified or estimated through confirmation from company officials as well as information in company press releases, Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices, SEC filings and other media outlets’ reports.
Not all companies disclose downsizing, and some share only the percentage of staff affected. Some biopharmas provide total numbers retrospectively rather than disclosing individual workforce reductions as they happen.
