Bicycle Therapeutics is reducing its headcount by around 25% to extend its cash runway into 2028. The layoffs, which are part of a push to cut spending by 30%, follow Genentech\u2019s termination of an oncology collaboration with the biotech.<\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s Bicycle used its second-quarter earnings on Friday to\u00a0outline<\/a> plans to save 30% over the course of its cash runway, primarily through a reduction in its workforce. The biotech\u00a0provided<\/a> more details in its financial filing, revealing that it expects the actions to result in a 25% reduction of its \u201ccurrent and planned workforce.\u201d Bicycle\u00a0ended<\/a> last year with 305 employees split between the U.K. and the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n The biotech said severance pay and other charges will cost it $5.3 million, mostly in the third quarter, but management expects to realize savings in the longer term. The savings are forecast to extend Bicycle\u2019s cash runway into 2028, compared to the second half of 2027\u00a0under<\/a> the company’s previous spending plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bicycle is making the cuts shortly after learning that Roche\u2019s Genentech is terminating their partnership. The biotech\u00a0said<\/a> Genentech gave notice in July, adding that the termination will be effective this month. Bicycle expects to recognize $6.5 million in remaining deferred revenue from the deal in the third quarter.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Bicycle said the layoffs are “not related” to the Genentech deal termination.<\/p>\n “Given the challenging macroeconomic environment, we are being prudent and taking action to conserve our cash and therefore protect the long-term interests of our company,” Bicycle’s spokesperson said in an email.<\/p>\n The Genentech deal centered on discovering new immuno-oncology drug candidates, and the partners separately announced plans to deprioritize this work last year, Bicycle’s spokesperson explained. Bicycle figured that “dedicating resources to this capital-intensive space in the current macroeconomic environment would be challenging,” according to the spokesperson.<\/p>\n “Given this background, having our collaboration come to an end is not surprising,” the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n The termination ends Bicycle\u2019s chances of continuing to pull in revenue\u2014beyond the current quarter\u2014from a collaboration that added $56 million to its coffers through the end of June. Genentech\u00a0paid<\/a> Bicycle $30 million upfront to form an immuno-oncology collaboration in 2020 and later\u00a0took up<\/a> its options to nominate additional targets.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since then, Genentech has pared back the collaboration,\u00a0terminating<\/a> one project in 2023,\u00a0stopping<\/a> work on another program in 2024 and ending a third project at the start of 2025. Each program\u00a0was tied to<\/a> $200 million in potential development and regulatory milestones and a further $200 million in sales milestones.<\/p>\n Internally, Bicycle is focused on bringing Nectin-4 drug candidate zelenectide to market as a treatment for metastatic urothelial cancer. The biotech is planning to talk to the FDA about dose selection for a phase 2\/3 pivotal trial and an accelerated approval pathway in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n Editor’s note: This story was updated at 11:25 a.m. ET to include more perspective from Bicycle Therapeutics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bicycle Therapeutics is reducing its headcount by around 25% to extend its cash runway into 2028. The layoffs,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[124],"tags":[42399,1115,3772,9275,1360,42400,2984,134],"class_list":["post-82403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-roche","tag-bicycle-therapeutics","tag-biotech","tag-deals","tag-fierce-biotech-homepage","tag-genentech","tag-immuno-oncology","tag-layoffs","tag-roche"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116737124977777253","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}