San Diego-based Metabasis Therapeutics has joined the ranks of the restructuring. The company says it will reduce its workforce by about 43 percent, or 38 employees. As part of the restructuring, Metabasis will focus on the company's product candidates, MB07811 for the treatment of hyperlipidemia and MB07803 for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, as well as on advancing its glucagon antagonist program.
"While this type of action is always very difficult, we believe it is in the best interest of Metabasis stakeholders that we closely align our current resources with our strongest near-term opportunities for success," said Dr. Mark Erion, president, chief executive officer and chief scientific officer of Metabasis. "Given the tough market conditions, we have decided to refine our research and development focus and increase our efforts to monetize certain of our assets and/or form strategic collaborations. We continue to make progress toward recommending a glucagon antagonist for development and as such are optimistic that this program will result in a significant collaboration. We also expect to initiate efforts later this year to establish a strategic collaboration for MB07803, our second generation fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase inhibitor for type 2 diabetes. These efforts will begin after reviewing the results from the recently completed clinical trial in patients with type 2 diabetes, as well as after defining the appropriate population of patients that may derive clinical benefit from MB07803 and developing the corresponding regulatory path forward."
- check out the Metabasis release