Sur­face On­col­o­gy lays off 20% as biotech halts CD39 work on one of its ‘crown jew­els’

Sur­face On­col­o­gy is let­ting go of 20% of its work­force as the biotech prunes its pipeline and nar­rows the scope of its lead drug.

The Boston-area can­cer drug de­vel­op­er is look­ing for ex­ter­nal part­ners on its CD39 as­set, dubbed SRF617, af­ter a strate­gic re­view, which the com­pa­ny said would ex­tend run­way in­to the sec­ond quar­ter of 2024, with burn his­tor­i­cal­ly be­ing about $20 mil­lion per quar­ter.

On the side­lines of AS­CO this June, CEO Rob Ross told End­points News the as­set was one of the biotech’s two “crown jew­els” and hint­ed that a part­ner would like­ly be need­ed. But Wednes­day’s news, dis­closed in the quar­ter­ly up­date, is per­haps a lit­tle ear­li­er than ex­pect­ed.

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