Beam Therapeutics said Thursday morning it would lay off 20% of its staff — or around 100 employees — and pause or reevaluate certain programs as it looks to cut costs.
It’s a notable setback for a gene-editing company that quickly raised over $1 billion in the few years after its co-founder, David Liu, described a new form of CRISPR, called base editing, that allowed researchers to change individual letters of DNA. The biotech hired rapidly, announced its intention to treat a broad range of diseases, and received clearance to start clinical trials in cancer and sickle cell.
Beam, however, has struggled to enroll patients in those trials. Meanwhile, the biotech stock market has stayed cold, including for gene-editing companies, whose technologies raise new regulatory, safety, and reimbursement questions. The pending approval of two gene therapies for sickle cell would also limit the market for Beam’s lead drug.