Af­ter Bris­tol My­ers pulls out of col­lab­o­ra­tion, Ike­na On­col­o­gy lays off 35% of staff and trims can­cer pipeline

Ike­na On­col­o­gy is cut­ting 35% of its work­ers to help fund two on­col­o­gy can­di­dates af­ter dump­ing two oth­er can­cer as­sets it was slat­ed to work on with Bris­tol My­ers Squibb. With the Big Phar­ma de­cid­ing to walk away, the biotech lost out on a $90 mil­lion fee.

Bris­tol My­ers in­formed Ike­na on Wednes­day it will not con­tin­ue to part­ner on the biotech’s IK-412 and IK-175 pro­grams, prompt­ing Ike­na to scrap the as­sets, ac­cord­ing to an SEC fil­ing. Ike­na would have re­ceived $50 mil­lion from BMS for IK-175 and $40 mil­lion for IK-412 if the ex­er­cised op­tions were tak­en. The biotech is now seek­ing oth­er op­tions for both as­sets, in­clud­ing out-li­cens­ing op­tions.

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