Syncona takes write-down on SwanBio as biotech halves workforce to focus on one gene therapy

UK life sci­ences in­vestor Syn­cona has tak­en a write-down on its in­vest­ment in pri­vate gene ther­a­py biotech Swan­Bio, part of a broad­er hit to its port­fo­lio, as the val­ue of its pub­licly list­ed life sci­ences hold­ings has de­clined.

Swan­Bio is lay­ing off about half of its em­ploy­ees, a spokesper­son for the com­pa­ny told End­points News via email Thurs­day morn­ing.

“Macro con­di­tions” and “com­pa­ny spe­cif­ic chal­lenges” have led to a £77.9 mil­lion (about $90 mil­lion) drop in the val­u­a­tions of Syn­cona’s pub­licly-list­ed port­fo­lio com­pa­nies, which in­clude Au­to­lus and Free­line Ther­a­peu­tics. The Swan­Bio val­ue near­ly halved, down £51.0 mil­lion, or rough­ly $65 mil­lion, Syn­cona said in its an­nu­al fi­nan­cial per­for­mance up­date on Thurs­day, for the 12-month stretch that end­ed March 31.

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