Scribe Therapeutics is slimming down its workforce by 20% as it readies its cardiometabolic pipeline for the clinic, a spokesperson confirmed to Fierce Biotech in an email.
“Building on the strong validation of our genome editing and epigenetic modifying technologies in non-human primates in 2024 we are now shifting our internal focus to clinical development,” Scribe co-founder, President and CEO Benjamin Oakes, Ph.D., said in an emailed statement to Fierce. “This evolution necessitates business adjustments to allocate resources to where they are most impactful.”
The layoffs were first reported by Endpoints News.
The Bay Area biotech presented primate data at the American Heart Association conference in November. The firm’s epigenetic gene silencer STX1150 reduced secretion of the enzyme PCSK9, lowering the animals’ levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, Scribe said in a Nov. 25 release.
STX1150 silences the PCSK9 gene by adding methyl groups to it rather than by changing the gene’s DNA itself.
While elevated cholesterol is a common health problem, Scribe’s other lead asset, STX1400, is instead pursuing two rare diseases: severe hypertriglyceridemia and familial chylomicronemia syndrome. STX1400 targets apolipoprotein C-III, and Scribe has said that the drug reduced levels of the protein and triglycerides in mice.
Scribe’s CRISPR-based technology has pulled in several Big Pharma partners, signing a deal worth up to $1.5 billion with Eli Lilly’s Prevail Therapeutics and a more than $1.2 billion pact with Sanofi in 2023.
Oakes founded Scribe in 2018 alongside his graduate school advisers David Savage, Ph.D., and Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna, Ph.D.