Roche’s Spark Therapeutics is letting staffers go and has “discontinued” several early-stage programs, a spokesperson confirmed to Endpoints News.
“In May, Spark informed employees in an all-employee meeting that the company was pivoting its strategy to accelerate its pipeline and help bring more therapies to patients, sooner,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Endpoints. “We also shared that part of this pivot would include organizational changes. We began to notify employees this week about any impact to their employment. Our focus is on our employees and clearly communicating these changes to them.”
The Philadelphia-based biotech has about 800 employees, according to Roche. The Swiss pharma giant bought the biotech for $4.8 billion in 2019. Roche directed a request for comment to Spark. The Spark spokesperson did not say how many positions were affected.
Spark is building a $575 million, 500,000-square-foot gene therapy center in West Philadelphia. Construction broke ground last year and the last steel beam was put in place earlier this year, the company has said.
Roche has written off the value of the Spark deal over the years, wiping out about $750 million in early 2023. It removed a Phase 2 hemophilia A gene therapy from the pipeline last year as part of a broader 20% slashing of its R&D portfolio.
The biotech is known for its work on ophthalmology gene therapy Luxturna, as well as on Pfizer’s recently approved hemophilia B treatment.
Spark is still in late-stage testing for SPK-8011, another gene therapy for the rare hematological disorder known as hemophilia A. It also has an early-stage Pompe disease gene therapy dubbed SPK-3006, and last fall it linked up with Spanish biotech SpliceBio to create a retinal disease gene therapy. Its researchers are also exploring gene therapies for the rare ocular condition known as Stargardt disease, the lysosomal storage disease Fabry and the genetic disorder Huntington’s disease, among others.
Multiple executives have left Spark in recent years, including longtime CEO Jeff Marrazzo, in 2022. Its current CEO is Ron Philip, who joined the company in 2017.