Nanobiotix has joined the ranks of biotechs that are trying to eke out their cash reserves. With its cash down to 70.6 million euros ($74 million) and its phase 3 solid tumor trial still two years away from interim data, the French biotech is enacting a suite of changes intended to save up to 15 million euros a year.
Last month, analysts at Jefferies flagged up the risk that Nanobiotix’s “near-term funding overhang” may distract, noting that its cash runway was due to run out well before the interim readout from its phase 3 trial. Nanobiotix has incremental trial updates scheduled for this year, but pivotal head and neck cancer data on its radioenhancer NBTXR3 aren’t due until the third quarter of 2024.
Faced with the funding gap, Nanobiotix is making changes to reduce its operating expenses, albeit not to the extent that the cash runway will reach deep into 2024. Having also established an equity financing line with Kepler Cheuvreux, Nanobiotix now expects to come to the end of its cash runway in the fourth quarter of 2023, compared to the second quarter of 2023 under the old spending plan.
The biotech has outlined a suite of actions it will take to achieve the six-month extension to its runway. Some of the 12 million euro to 15 million euro reduction in cash burn will come from changes to the clinical trial strategy. Nanobiotix plans to halve the follow-up time in a phase 1 trial, cutting it to 12 months, and hold off on running studies in soft tissue sarcoma.
Other savings will come from cuts to preclinical research, including development activities related to the nanotechnology subsidiary Curadigm, and from adjustments to the manufacturing work carried out in support of the pipeline.
Finally, Nanobiotix is “adapting” its infrastructure through actions “including reducing satellite office facilities and implementing a temporary hiring freeze.” A spokesperson for the company told Fierce Biotech that “there is no layoff plan on the table.”
The actions are intended to enable Nanobiotix to continue committing resources to its phase 3 head and neck cancer trial, a study that is evaluating NBTXR3 in combination with a checkpoint inhibitor and “the development of a registration pathway in I/O combination therapy.”
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