Seattle-based Trubion Pharmaceuticals has become the latest in a long lineup of biotech companies hunkering down, laying off staffers and refocusing on core programs. Trubion says that it will lay off 25 workers--about a quarter of its work force--in a restructuring that will leave it with enough cash to journey into the second half of 2010.
Trubion--a 2006 Fierce 15 company--will continue working on in its in-house program for the leukemia therapy TRU-016. It will also continue to do the work laid out in its collaboration with Wyeth, in which Wyeth picks up the tab. And the company says it expects to hit several new milestones, including the start of three new clinical trials undertaken by Wyeth.
"Concentrating our resources on our clinical stage-product candidates, as well as our preclinical programs that we believe have the greatest potential for value creation, while streamlining operations will increase our financial flexibility by reducing ongoing operating expenses and decreasing the need for additional financing in the short term," said Peter Thompson, CEO and chairman of Trubion.
The Seattle Times lays out the list of local biotechs that have cut back as the economic crisis bites deep. The list includes Northstar Neuroscience, which is moving toward liquidation, Targeted Genetics, which announced layoffs in December, and Cardiac Science.
- check out the Trubion release
- read the story from the Seattle Times
ALSO: Canada's PreMd, a predictive medicine company, is downsizing to a skeleton staff, closing its McMaster lab and terminating its clinical programs as it waits for word on its FDA appeal regarding a predictive heart disease test. Release
PLUS: Canada's Bellus Health - formerly called Neurochem -- is scrambling to find new funds, saying in a statement today that ability of the Company to continue as a going concern beyond the first quarter of 2009 is dependent upon raising additional financing..." Release