San Francisco biotech company FibroGen guts staff after failed cancer trials

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/fibrogen-biotech-layoffs-pancreatic-cancer-19626598.php


FibroGen, a biotech company focused on cancer research, is laying off 127 workers in San Francisco after flunking two late-stage trials for pancreatic cancer treatment. The cuts add to a wave of biotech layoffs in the Bay Area.



The company announced the trial results in a July 30 news release, along with its plan to cut costs: FibroGen is shutting down development of pamrevlumab, the antibody it was testing, and laying off around 75% of its United States workers.

The layoffs will slam FibroGen’s San Francisco headquarters. A total of 127 workers there will be laid off this year, with just 51 keeping their jobs, according to a WARN document the company filed with the state Friday, as is required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act in the event of mass layoffs. Per the filing, each employee was notified Friday.


Four senior vice presidents will lose their jobs, according to the filing, including FibroGen’s chief scientific officer. Nine vice presidents are also among the layoffs, along with eight of 16 executive directors, 19 of 27 senior directors and 16 of 24 directors. The cuts are even steeper at the bottom end of the company, which includes scientists, executive assistants, quality specialists and research associates.




FibroGen’s trial results are a blow for patients with pancreatic cancer. The company’s antibody pamrevlumab was meant to slow down a protein that’s thought to promote tumor growth. But the two trials — one focused on metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, the other on locally advanced, unresectable pancreatic cancer — didn’t meet the company’s life span-extending goals. In one of the trials, according to FibroGen’s news release, the placebo group’s median survival time was actually longer than the test group’s.