Rare disease biotech Rallybio cuts 19 staffers and sheds partnered preclinical programs

Rally­bio is lay­ing off close to half of its em­ploy­ees and seek­ing “al­ter­na­tive op­tions” for its pre­clin­i­cal pro­grams as it gets ready to put the two lead can­di­dates in­to Phase II.

Fac­ing a harsh fund­ing en­vi­ron­ment, Rally­bio joins a wave of biotechs dou­bling down on their most ad­vanced as­sets and shed­ding the rest to save costs. In to­tal, it is cut­ting 19 em­ploy­ees, or 45% of the work­force.

In its case, the New Haven, CT-based biotech is bet­ting on a pair of po­ten­tial rare au­toim­mune dis­ease treat­ments: RLYB212, an an­ti-HPA-1a an­ti­body de­signed to pre­vent fe­tal and neona­tal al­loim­mune throm­bo­cy­tope­nia (FNAIT); and RLYB116, a once-week­ly, low vol­ume sub­cu­ta­neous­ly in­ject­ed C5 in­hibitor that will be test­ed for com­ple­ment-me­di­at­ed dis­eases. It ex­pects to start a mid-stage tri­al for RLYB212 in preg­nant women and come up with a de­vel­op­ment plan for RLYB116 at an op­ti­mized dose in the sec­ond half of the year.

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