AI biotech Exscientia to trim nearly a quarter of workforce, following pipeline cut and CEO firing

Ex­sci­en­tia an­nounced a $40 mil­lion cost-sav­ing pro­gram on Tues­day that will lead to lay­offs af­fect­ing 20% to 25% of the com­pa­ny’s work­ers.

The move, dis­closed as part of a first-quar­ter up­date Tues­day morn­ing, will af­fect ar­eas across the com­pa­ny, in­clud­ing tar­get iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, pre­ci­sion med­i­cine, ex­per­i­men­ta­tion, en­gi­neer­ing and in­fra­struc­ture.

The 12-year-old biotech is one of the orig­i­nal AI-dri­ven drug dis­cov­ery com­pa­nies and has grown from just a hand­ful of em­ploy­ees to 483 peo­ple at the end of last year, ac­cord­ing to its 2023 an­nu­al re­port.

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