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Repare Therapeutics plans to reduce its workforce by around 25% as the company prioritises operations on its four clinical programmes in oncology indications and shuns new candidate discoveries.
The Canadian biotech, which posted a net loss of $34.8m in Q2 financial results earlier this month, said it would focus on the advancement of lunresertib and camonsertib, as well as the RP-1664 and RP-3467 programmes while preclinical research and discovery activities will be drawn back, as per a 28 August press release.
Repare has 179 employees, according to GlobalData’s Pharma Intelligence Centre. The majority of those let go by the company are those working in the preclinical group, as per a 1 August SEC filing.
The company stated it expects to incur charges of $1.5m–$2m relating to the restructuring, consisting of one-time cash payments for termination benefits. Repare expects to execute most of its plan by Q3 this year, saving around $15m annually that will extend its cash runway into the second half of 2026.
Repare’s plan to focus its operations on its clinical programmes will “maximise value for patients and our shareholders”, said Repare’s CEO Lloyd M Sega.
The company’s pipeline consists of candidates developed using its CRISPR-based platform called SNIPRx.
Repare’s most clinically advanced candidate is camonsertib, an ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3-related (ATR) inhibitor being evaluated in a non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) expansion cohort of a Phase II trial. The study is evaluating the treatment as a monotherapy and in combination with other treatments for various cancers. Repare expects to report initial data from the trial in 2025.
Repare Therapeutics received a $40m milestone payment from Roche following the dosing of its first patient in the Phase II camonsertib trial in January this year. The payment is part of a collaboration between the two companies that involved a $125m upfront payment and includes up to $1.2bn in milestone patents from Roche to license camonsertib.
Also in Repare’s pipeline is lunresertib, an oral small molecule inhibitor of protein kinase, membrane-associated tyrosine/threonine 1 (PKMYT1). The candidate is being evaluated in a dose expansion clinical trial at the recommended Phase II dose (RP2D) in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian and endometrial cancers.
The trial (NCT04855656), which is also testing the drug in combination with camonsertib, is slated to have data reported in Q4 this year, with Repare planning to begin a registrational trial in 2025.
The US Food and Drug Administration granted fast track designation for lunresertib in combination with camonsertib in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer in June this year.