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Century Therapeutics is closing its Seattle operations as a part of a 25% discount in headcount and a shift in its priorities.
The Philadelphia-based biotech startup launched a Seattle innovation hub in March 2020 and tapped the corporate’s president of R&D, Hyam Levitsky, to guide it. Levitsky now plans to resign from the corporate on Jan. 31.
GeekWire reached out to Century Therapeutics to study extra in regards to the layoffs and can replace the put up after we hear again.
The corporate tallied 170 full-time and 18 part-time staff in a March 2022 regulatory submitting. Round 20 individuals in Seattle record Century Therapeutics as their newest employer on LinkedIn.
Century can also be closing a location in Hamilton, Ontario, and consolidating operations in Philadelphia.
The layoffs are a part of a spate of current workforce hits to know-how firms, together with 119 biotech firms in 2022, in response to Fierce Biotech. In Washington state, Absci, Zymeworks, TwinStrand Biosciences, NanoString Applied sciences, Neoleukin Therapeutics and Sana Biotechnology all shed staff in 2022.
Century launched in 2019 to develop therapies from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which might be derived from grownup tissue, and pulled in $242.7 million in an IPO two years later. Together with the layoffs, the corporate is de-prioritizing a program for glioblastoma and a discovery program for blood cancers.
“As our confidence within the disruptive potential of our know-how platform and prioritized pipeline packages continues to extend, we’ve got carried out these price saving measures to proper dimension the group and additional prolong our money runway to allow achievement of key milestones,” stated CEO Lalo Flores in a press release. The cuts allow the corporate to increase its money runway into 2026.
The corporate will proceed its ongoing partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), which has cell remedy operations within the Seattle space. The businesses introduced a $150 million deal in January 2022 below which BMS will develop and commercialize as much as 4 of Century’s packages for most cancers therapies.
“I’m happy to have been a part of the Century crew throughout its adolescence and I’m tremendously pleased with the progress the Firm has made, leaving it effectively positioned for future success,” stated Levitsky in a press release. Levitsky was previously govt vice chairman of analysis and chief scientific officer at Seattle’s Juno Therapeutics, which was acquired by Celgene for $9 billion in 2018.
“I go away Century with continued confidence within the imaginative and prescient for next-generation iPSC-derived cell therapies,” added Levitsky.
Century is recruiting sufferers for its first scientific trial, involving a pure killer cell remedy for B-cell lymphomas. The corporate can also be creating a follow-on product candidate for lymphoma; one other remedy for stable tumors that specific the marker Nectin-4; and therapies for acute myeloma and a number of myeloma in collaboration with BMS.