Count­ing its re­main­ing cash, Vi­cal ax­es 40 staffers and cir­cles wag­ons around two Phase II as­sets

Just days af­ter Vi­cal $VI­CL and its part­ners at Astel­las an­nounced that their late-stage study of the CMV vac­cine ASP0113 had failed bad­ly, the San Diego-based biotech is ax­ing more than half of its staff and cir­cling the wag­ons around its re­main­ing clin­i­cal-stage as­sets.

The biotech re­ports that it is lay­ing off 40 out of 74 staffers in the painful re­struc­tur­ing, which comes a lit­tle more than a week af­ter the tri­al flop. All the re­main­ing ef­forts around ASP0113 are be­ing ter­mi­nat­ed as well. Vi­cal ex­ecs say they should have enough cash in the bank to pay for de­vel­op­ment work through 2019.

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