Lay­offs hit pri­vate gene ther­a­py star­tups, mi­graine biotech Sat­suma as in­dus­try squeeze doesn’t let up

Two small gene ther­a­py mak­ers and a biotech work­ing on an in­ves­ti­ga­tion­al mi­graine drug have let em­ploy­ees go. The moves add to a broad­er year-long wave of lay­offs that have side­lined thou­sands of work­ers in the in­dus­try.

Sat­suma Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals said af­ter Tues­day’s mar­ket close that it will lay off 36% of its work­ers, ef­fec­tive this Fri­day. The South San Fran­cis­co and Durham, NC biotech sub­mit­ted its ap­proval re­quest to the FDA this month for a mi­graine drug, but Sat­suma won’t be build­ing a com­mer­cial team as it seeks an “es­tab­lished phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny” to de­liv­er STS101 to pa­tients, should it get the green light. The com­pa­ny had 25 em­ploy­ees at the end of 2022.

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Venture & Research Associate

Alexandria Real Estate Equities

San Francisco, CA, USA