Just one week after inking a $407 million pact with Bayer--which included a $35 million up-front payment--San Diego-based Ardea Biosciences says it's cutting 47 percent of its workforce. The company announced wider-than-expected losses due to higher R&D costs, and said that it would focus resources on its lead program, RDEA119. The drug is being evaluated in advanced cancer patients of different tumor types as a single agent in a Phase I study as well as in combination with sorafenib (Nexavar) in a Phase I/II study.
The majority of the cuts will come from discovery research and associated general and administrative personnel. Ardea expects the layoffs to save $2.3 million in 2009 and $6.6 million per year thereafter. "From a financial perspective, we expect that our current financial resources, plus the $35 million upfront payment from Bayer, combined with the savings generated from our restructuring, will allow us to fund operations through the first quarter of 2011."
- here's Ardea's release
- see the report from Reuters