Turn­ing fo­cus to clin­i­cal work, Ve­rastem ax­es 31 jobs, scales back can­cer drug pro­mo­tion af­ter dis­ap­point­ing sales

Months af­ter tak­ing the helm at Ve­rastem On­col­o­gy, Bri­an Stug­lik has a plan to take the biotech in a “new strate­gic di­rec­tion” — but not be­fore some lay­offs.

Left out of an up­beat press re­lease spelling out its clin­i­cal plans, and buried be­low news of a $100 mil­lion pri­vate place­ment in an SEC fil­ing, is a planned re­struc­tur­ing that will claim 31 jobs. Along­side some oth­er cost-sav­ing mea­sures, Ve­rastem ex­pects to cut ex­pens­es down by $70 mil­lion to $80 mil­lion per year.

In par­tic­u­lar, the com­pa­ny sig­naled that the cuts are com­ing from its sales force as it scales back the pro­mo­tion of its sole com­mer­cial prod­uct, Copik­tra. Non-core clin­i­cal re­search will al­so be scrapped.

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