Exscientia lays off up to a quarter of staff to preserve cash for broad clinical push
21 May 2024
Executive ChangePhase 1
Exscientia disclosed Tuesday that it plans to let go of 20-25% of its employees by the end of the year to streamline operations as it aims to bring its wholly-owned candidates to the clinic.
The AI-enabled drug developer has two partnered programmes in early-stage testing: CDK7 inhibitorCDK7 inhibitor GTAEXS617 is being developed with GT Apeiron Therapeutics for solid tumours, and PKC-theta inhibitor EXS4318, which Bristol Myers Squibb in-licensed, is in Phase I testing for inflammatory diseases.
Exscientia plans to start trials of its LSD1 inhibitorLSD1 inhibitor and MALT1-targeting candidate to treat certain haematologic malignancies next half and in early 2025, respectively.
The headcount reduction, which is expected to result in annualised savings of $40 million starting next year, will affect positions across Exscientia’s target identification, precision medicine, experimentation, engineering and infrastructure units. The move will extend the company’s cash runway into 2027.
The restructuring comes just months after the firm fired former CEO Andrew Hopkins after an investigation uncovered inappropriate relationships with two staffers.
Chief scientific officer David Hallet, who was appointed interim CEO in February following the incident, said in a statement Tuesday that Exscientia is “beginning to see the transformative power of fully integrating AI drug design with the sheer capacity of comprehensive robotic automation across the entire experimentation cycle.”
Separately, a round of layoffs also hit sinonasal implant developer Lyra Therapeutics. The firm will let go of 87 employees, totalling about 75% of its staff, and stop all manufacturing and commercialization operations to extend its cash runway into 2026.
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