Rich Hey­man-backed biotech gets out the axe as it sets course on sur­vival mis­sion

Back when Rich Hey­man and the team at Metacrine float­ed their IPO in the fall of 2020, they breezed across the fin­ish line in­to Nas­daq af­ter pric­ing shares at $13 each — an­oth­er mem­ber of the new biotech elite chas­ing land­mark drugs for NASH.

To­day, it’s a whole oth­er sto­ry.

The San Diego biotech put out word that it’s ax­ing half of its staff in or­der to con­serve cash as it makes a last-stand drug de­vel­op­ment ef­fort. Its shares are mired deep in pen­ny stock ter­ri­to­ry as its mar­ket cap sits at a cata­ton­ic $13 mil­lion, a dire case as in­vestors bail in one of the worst mar­ket down­turns for the in­dus­try in more than a decade.

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