Oral vac­cine play­er lays off 27% of staff as it shelves Covid work

Af­ter spend­ing much of the past few years tout­ing its ex­per­i­men­tal Covid-19 vac­cine pill, Vaxart is pulling back and shelv­ing all fur­ther tri­als.

It has laid off 27% of its staff, which was 164 em­ploy­ees at the end of 2022, in a bid to pre­serve cash and is pri­or­i­tiz­ing the norovirus pro­gram mov­ing for­ward. The move is ex­pect­ed to ex­tend its cash run­way in­to mid-2024.

News of lay­offs has dom­i­nat­ed biotech head­lines in re­cent months as ex­ecs, fac­ing a fund­ing crunch, look for ways to make their mon­ey last longer. End­points News‘ Kyle LaHu­cik first re­port­ed Vaxart’s re­duc­tion in head­count in March, al­though the biotech de­clined to de­tail the num­bers back then.

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