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Biogen (NASDAQ:BIIB) is laying off 830 employees, and stoping development on a handful of pipeline projects.
Biogen (NASDAQ:BIIB) is laying off 830 employees, and stoping development on a handful of pipeline projects.
According to Fierce Biotech:
The plan is to do away with about 830 jobs by the end of 2015, Biogen said, an effort designed to save roughly $250 million in 2016 and beyond. Biogen is now “in the process of notifying employees” who are losing their jobs, the company said. The decision “was extremely difficult,” CEO George Scangos said in a statement, “but we believe these actions are necessary to fulfill our mission of bringing important new medicines to patients.”
On the pipeline side, Biogen is walking away from its plans to develop the oral multiple sclerosis drug Tecfidera for the secondary-progressive form of the disease, cutting a Phase II lupus program targeting the TWEAK immune cell, and discontinuing some preclinical projects in immunology and fibrosis research, the company said. Biogen is also abandoning its ambitions of getting the injectable drug Tysabri approved for secondary-progressive MS after reporting negative Phase III results Wednesday.