Medigene will slim its head count by 40% and pause plans to get its first asset into the clinic in order to channel cash to its T cell receptor (TCR)-guided therapies.
The German biotech said the cost-cutting measures set out Tuesday morning would be in line with its “refocused R&D activities” in off-the-shelf TCR programs. As a result, employees “essential for supporting these activities as well as the company’s ability to continue to deliver on its obligations for its existing partners” will be spared from the layoffs.
Those partners include WuXi Biologics, with which Medigene penned a three-year collaboration in August to work on TCR-guided therapies for difficult-to-treat tumors. As well focusing on that agreement, Medigene said today that it will be continue to develop its own off-the-shelf TCR candidates as well as seek out more partners.
That work will come at the expense of MDG1015, a NY-ESO-1/LAGE-1a-targeting TCR-T therapy the biotech had been gearing up to launch into a phase 1 trial. Instead, Medigene will “temporarily delay” the start of that study “while actively seeking partnerships and additional financing options to advance this program into the clinic.”
The biotech did say it “remains confident” in the asset, which is “designed to address a significant unmet medical need in the treatment of solid tumors.” A clinical trials application submission is still expected before the end of the year, the company pointed out.
Medigene sounded less supportive of its array of preclinical autologous cell therapy programs, which it is now deprioritizing. They include the KRAS-targeting MDG2021, MDG2011 and MDG2012.
“The company will pause all pre-clinical development work and will actively seek partnerships to advance those programs through pre-clinical stage to IND,” the biotech explained.
“Medigene has continuously prioritized projects and optimized the allocation of our resources to the R&D work and programs that we believe create the most value for patients and shareholders,” CEO Selwyn Ho said in the Nov. 26 release.
“While we have successfully advanced our lead TCR-T therapy MDG1015 to IND approval, we have decided to delay the MDG1015 clinical trial and pause all further development of our other autologous cell therapy programs, whilst we continue to seek future financing and partnerships to re-initiate their further development,” Ho added.
“This enables us to keep our strategic options open while focusing near term on our ability to generate 3S TCRs for TCR-guided therapies, and in advancing our TCR-guided T cell engager MDG3010 program in collaboration with WuXi Biologics,” the CEO said.
Despite the significant workforce and strategic restructuring, it appears to be a case of running to stand still for Medigene. The company revealed that due to a likely fall in expected income in 2025, the changes outlined today will only allow the biotech to stick to its previous estimates of having a cash runway up to July next year.
As a result, Medigene—which ended September with 9.5 million euros ($10 million) in the bank—“continues to evaluate all appropriate financing and strategic options” to find the cash to keep it afloat into 2026 and beyond.