Roiled by senior-level exits, Jim Wilson’s Passage Bio retrenches, chopping back on staff as it extends cash runway
A little more than 3 years after Penn’s Jim Wilson and the late Tachi Yamada heralded the launch of their gene therapy upstart Passage Bio with a bevy of marquee VCs diving in, the biotech is hunkering down for a reorganization. And it comes with the exit of its R&D chief just days after one of the investors on its board quit after registering a sharp disagreement over their plans.
Passage put out word today that it’s chopping 13% of its workforce and circling the wagons around 3 key programs — for GM1 gangliosidosis, Krabbe disease and frontotemporal dementia — which will give it enough cash on hand to get to Q2 2024. The statement didn’t say just how many staffers are being cut, but Passage — closely aligned with Wilson’s Gene Therapy Program at Penn, which has provided rights to a portfolio of products — noted in its last 10-K that it had 133 full time employees, in addition to independent contractors.
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