Vor Bio winding down as multiple biotechs downsize

The challenges facing biotechs amid the ongoing financial fallout have resulted in the winding down of one US biotech, Vor Bio, and job losses at a clutch of other firms.

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Vor Bio has confirmed that it will halt clinical and manufacturing operations, including its ongoing studies of stem cell-based therapies for blood cancers, as it embarks on the dreaded hunt for "strategic alternatives" and cuts 95% of its workforce.

The company – which will end the process with just eight employees to oversee that search – said the decision was a result of "currently available clinical data from its key clinical programmes and a challenging fundraising environment."

The shock announcement comes just a few months after Vor Bio raised nearly $56 million in a private placement and a few weeks after it said it was expecting to report clinical data with trem-cel, a shielded transplant for acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), and transplant donor-derived anti-CD33 CAR-T cell therapy VCAR33 for AML later this year.

The biotech ended 2024 with around $92 million in cash and said its options may include the sale or licensing of assets, a merger or sale of the company, or some other strategic action.

Other biotechs wielding the axe

Also this week, Mountain View, California biotech IGM Biosciences has said it plans to shed 80% of its staff after partner Sanofi abandoned a programme aimed at generating IgM-based antibodies for cancer and immunological indications.

In a financial filing, the company confirmed it was also closing most of its remaining lab and office facilities to preserve cash as it looks for a way forward. In January, it announced it was halting development of two IgM-based bispecific T cell engagers (TCEs), CD20xCD3-targeting imvotamab and CD38xCD3-directed IGM-2644, for autoimmune diseases.

Layoffs at Rallybio – which amount to 40% of its workforce – come shortly after the company abandoned the development of its lead pipeline drug RLYB212 for the prevention of foetal/neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia (FNAIT), a rare maternal immune disorder that affects platelet levels in infants.

New Haven, Connecticut-based Rallybio has switched its attention to RLYB116, a once-weekly, subcutaneously-administered complement C5 inhibitor in development for the treatment of patients with complement-mediated diseases, which should have new clinical data later this quarter. The company ended the first quarter with cash reserves of almost $55 million.

Artificial intelligence-focused drug discovery biotech Insitro said it would cut almost a quarter (22%) of its workforce, with the layoff affecting most departments within the company, in a move designed to conserve cash as it prepares for clinical trials of its first candidates. The reductions will leave it with a headcount of around 230.

In a statement on LinkedIn, the South San Francisco-based company – which has partnerships in place with Bristol-Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly – said the move "extends our runway into 2027 through multiple preclinical and clinical inflexion points for our six most advanced pipeline programmes." Adding that it was a result of "current macroeconomic uncertainty."

Finally, Korro Bio has said it will axe 20% of its staff in order to extend its cash runway into 2027 as it waits for the results of its phase 1/2a REWRITE trial of RNA-editing candidate KRRO-110 for genetic disorder alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD) in the second half of this year.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech, which ended the first quarter with $139 million in cash, said it also plans to nominate a second development candidate and advance two Novo Nordisk-partnered programmes in the area of central nervous system (CNS) diseases.