Generation Bio is shedding 90% of its workforce after the biotech acknowledged it’s unlikely to find the cash to take its lipid nanoparticle tech into the clinic.
The Massachusetts-based company has been focused on applying a cell-targeted lipid nanoparticle (ctLNP) delivery platform to its programs in various liver-related cell types. Using a T-cell-specific ligand, Generation has seen potential in using ctLNPs to deliver siRNA to T cells to address autoimmune diseases.
Some initial preclinical findings suggest the company could be onto something. In its second-quarter earnings release, Generation pointed to data from a recent nonhuman primate study that demonstrated that a 0.5-mg/kg dose of ctLNP-siRNA resulted in a “significant knockdown” in T cells of beta-2 microglobulin, a reporter protein, over three weeks.
“These results are consistent with previous non-human primate studies that have demonstrated efficient, selective and specific ctLNP delivery to multiple cell types and with different cargoes, including mRNA and the company’s proprietary immune-quiet DNA,” Generation explained in the release.
But even if the science shows promise, Generation needs two other commodities in short supply to bring its work to fruition—time and money.
“While our delivery system is mature, our program data are early and we recognize the significant time and investment required to reach proof-of-concept in patients, as well as the uncertainty of extending our current cash runway,” CEO Geoff McDonough, M.D., said in a statement.
“We are evaluating strategic options to maximize the value of our assets for our shareholders and their potential to offer meaningful benefit to patients,” McDonough added.
In practice, this means waving goodbye to 9 of 10 of the company’s employees, with Generation’s R&D organization not being spared.
As part of this major restructure—set to occur in stages up to the end of October—the company said it will “initially maintain its core research and development capabilities as it engages in the strategic alternatives review process.”
Generation ended June with $141.4 million in the bank, which the company expects to stretch out “for the foreseeable future.”
The biotech went public in 2020 with a pipeline of gene therapies designed to hit targets in the liver and the eye. Work on hemophilia A hit a major setback the following year, and, by 2023, the company had shifted focus based on the belief there was “a clear path” to developing its own programs against targets beyond the liver.
That R&D pivot saw the company lay off 40% of its workforce, including its chief medical officer and its chief development officer.