California-based immunotherapy biotech Atreca has announced its third reorg in recent history, implementing a further reduction in its workforce of approximately 40% in order to continue exploring potential strategic transactions and business alternatives.
The company revealed the cuts alongside its third quarter financial results. In its most recent SEC filing, Atreca said that it had received notice of possible Nasdaq delisting in early September after the company's stock had fallen below the minimum average closing price required. In the same filing, Atreca also stated that it believes that its existing cash, cash equivalents and investments will only be sufficient to fund its planned operating and capital needs into the first quarter of 2024.
CEO John Orwin has asserted that the company is focused on advancing its preclinical ADC known as APN-497444, which Atreca believes "has potential to unlock meaningful tumor targets undiscoverable by conventional approaches."
The tightening of its belt began last June, when the biotech reduced its workforce by more than 25% in an effort to extend its cash runway through 2023. Then, in August, Atreca launched further cost-saving measures, suspending development of its lead asset, ATRC-101, and reducing its workforce by approximately 40%.
A few months before halting development on its lead asset, Atreca had shared data from the ongoing phase 1b study of ATRC-101 in patients with select advanced solid tumors, supporting the asset's observed safety and tolerability profile as well as the correlation between longer progression-free survival and high target expression. The company is now looking to license the asset. "We believe that the best path forward for the asset is with a larger partner, and as a result, we are suspending development and evaluating potential out-licensing opportunities," said Orwin back in August.
