Two central nervous system disorder biotechs laid off employees recently.
New York gene therapy startup Apertura and Boston RNAi biotech Atalanta Therapeutics have trimmed their workforces, the two companies’ CEOs confirmed to Endpoints News on Friday.
Both CEOs declined to comment on the number of employees impacted or percentage of workforce affected at the preclinical startups.
Atalanta launched with $110 million in January 2021 from F-Prime Capital and upfront payments from partnerships with Roche’s Genentech and Biogen. Apertura Gene Therapy unveiled with a $67 million Series A from Deerfield in April 2022. Neither startup has disclosed another financing round since.
Joseph La Barge“Like pretty much all companies in the biotech space right now, we are constantly reviewing our capital needs as well as engaging in strategic reprioritization and as part of that, we did do a reduction in force to ensure that we can continue to maximize the value of our assets,” Apertura CEO Joseph La Barge told Endpoints in a Friday phone call. He joined in mid-2022 after serving as business chief at gene therapy company Spark Therapeutics, now a unit of Roche.
Last month, Apertura said it planned to submit its first IND for an undisclosed CNS disorder using its novel AAV capsids next year.
“We’re reviewing those plans and are looking to move our programs forward as expeditiously as we can,” La Barge said.
Gene therapy startups face declining investor interest, and similar companies have had to pull back on their workforces amid the yearslong industry downturn.
Alicia SecorAtalanta, meanwhile, is looking to bring RNA interference, or RNAi medicines, into CNS disorders.
The biotech is still advancing its Genentech and Biogen pacts, as well as an internal pipeline, CEO Alicia Secor confirmed in an email to Endpoints on Friday. She said the company is seeing “potentially best-in-class results for delivering oligos to the CNS across multiple targets.”
Atalanta is on pace to share its first two clinical candidates “in the coming months” and has its eyes on both IND submissions next year.
“As a result we are expanding our clinical development capabilities, and have realigned our team to match this focus,” Secor said.