Tessera Therapeutics, Flagship’s major bet on what it calls gene writing, is letting go 13% to 14% of its workforce, a spokesperson confirmed to Endpoints News.
The well-funded Boston biotech will reduce its headcount as it focuses on getting into the clinic. The spokesperson said the move impacts “less than 50 employees.”
“As a result of positive data from our preclinical programs, we have reached an inflection point where we need to rebalance the resources of our organization to prioritize and grow our clinical development efforts in anticipation of advancing multiple candidates into the clinic,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.
“Consequently, we have made the decision to reduce our current staff in some areas while continuing to hire in others that will support our goals,” the spokesperson added.
Headcount reductions have been a common move for gene editing startups and platform biotechs that launched with grand ambitions but have had to scale back in order to save capital for costly human trials.
Michael SeverinoTessera is one of the highest-profile startups incubated by Flagship Pioneering, the firm behind Moderna, among dozens of other companies. Tessera launched in 2018 and has reeled in more than $530 million. Flagship poached former AbbVie vice chair and president Michael Severino as its CEO in the summer of 2022.
The upstart’s so-called “gene writers” tweak particular letters or insert new sequences of DNA. It’s part of a third wave of gene editing, and researchers have said the biotech’s technology sounds similar to techniques being explored by other fledgling companies.
At last year’s American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy conference, Tessera lifted the cover on early data for five of its preclinical programs. At next month’s iteration of the annual confab, Tessera plans to share more on its in vivo therapies for phenylketonuria, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, sickle cell disease and Wilson’s disease, Severino said in a press release on Monday. It will also present updates on its T cell-based therapies, he said.
“We’re simply trying to demonstrate whether our delivery works and whether gene writing machinery works in the way we would expect,” Severino told Endpoints at last year’s ASGCT conference. “When the answers to those questions are yes, precedence tells us it translates with a high degree of certainty into the clinic and so we think these are very, very exciting results.”