Layoffs
As is often the case at the beginning and end of the year, a number of companies announced layoffs. Other news is related to lawsuits and an overall positive story about cancer death rates. Here’s a look.
Veritas Genetics was offering whole-genome sequencing for about $600, going head-to-head with companies like 23andMe and Ancestry.com. Earlier this week there were reports the company laid off 50 staffers and now they’ve announced they are ending operations in the U.S.
Most of the jobs are field-based positions across the U.S., although some will be in Thousand Oaks, California at the company’s headquarters.
Three years after Novartis opened a $1 billion research & development facility in Shanghai, the company is shifting the focus of the site from drug discovery to commercial development.
Unfortunately, this makes Amgen yet another major biopharma company to exit or slim down work on neurological diseases. Others include Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca.
The company will discontinue development of its lead T-cell asset, ATIR101, halt its ongoing Phase III trial and lay off half its staff.
Halozyme Therapeutics will halt development of a metastatic pancreatic cancer drug after it failed to demonstrate an improvement in overall survival in a Phase III trial.
Cyclerion Therapeutics had a tough day, announcing the failure of two separate clinical trials for the same drug on the same day.
Acorda Therapeutics will terminate approximately 25% of its headcount as the company initiates a corporate restructuring only weeks after being snubbed by the U.S. Supreme Court over a patent appeal for multiple sclerosis drug Ampyra.
According to the report, the majority of the cuts will occur in the company’s Human Health Division and are expected to begin Jan. 3 and conclude Jan. 16, 2020.
PRESS RELEASES
