Editas Medicine is laying off three quarters of its workforce, including its chief medical officer, after the gene editing biotech was unable to find a partner for its sickle cell disease (SCD) medicine.
The company already announced in October that it was prioritizing its in vivo gene therapy programs, pointing to evidence that its candidate was capable of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell editing and fetal hemoglobin induction in humanized mice engrafted with human hematopoietic stem cells and lacking their own hematopoietic cells. This refocus was bolstered at the time by a deal with Genevant to make use of the Roivant offshoot’s lipid nanoparticle expertise.
But this new strategy came at the expense of Editas’ ex vivo SCD therapy reni-cel. Editas said back in October that it would begin the search for someone to partner or out-license the therapy to, “which would allow for further development and ultimately commercialization of reni-cel with or by another party and would allow us to substantially reduce spend in 2025.”
As recently as Monday, Editas was showcasing data from the RUBY study at the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting in San Diego that showed 27 of the 28 treated SCD patients were free of vaso-occlusive events.
But, in a postmarket release Dec. 12, Editas revealed that its “extensive” search for a partner has proved fruitless and the company will now end development of reni-cel. The company will “work closely with the clinical trial sites, regulators and other parties to determine the path forward” for patients currently enrolled in the phase 1/2/3 RUBY trial in SCD and the phase 1/2 EdiTHAL study in beta thalassemia.
The biotech’s decision to halt its ex vivo work and return to being a preclinical company comes at the expense of 65% of its workforce, who will depart over the coming six months. They include Chief Medical Officer Baisong Mei, M.D., Ph.D., who joined Editas from Sanofi in 2022.
Emma Reeve, the chair of Editas’ board, is also resigning, to be replaced by Jessica Hopfield, Ph.D., the company explained in the Thursday evening release. Editas ended September with $322.1 million in cash, equivalents and a licensing payment, and the restructuring should eke out this money into the second quarter of 2027.
“Recent scientific breakthroughs by the Editas team have convinced us that the timelines around the near-term viability of in vivo CRISPR-edited medicines have accelerated meaningfully,” CEO Gilmore O’Neill explained in the release.
“We believe the ability to provide in vivo gene editing that functions via gene upregulation across tissues holds the potential to significantly expand the addressable therapeutic possibilities for CRISPR-based gene editing and uniquely position Editas to be a leader in the field moving forward,” O’Neill added.
Against the backdrop of Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics’ approved SCD therapy Casgevy, analysts at Citi described Editas' decision to restructure the company around in vivo therapies “a prudent one ... particularly given the strength of recent competitor data for an ex vivo therapy in SCD.”