Metagenomi culls 25% of its workforce and replaces CEO in reshuffle

Metagenomi volition slash a 4th of its workforce and power up its CEO arsenic portion of efforts to widen its currency runway to Q4 2027.

The layoffs travel via the shelving of aboriginal find and level research. Instead, the US-headquartered gene-editing biotech volition nonstop funds towards progressing its pb campaigner MGX-001 into objective investigating arsenic a one-time successful vivo attraction for haemophilia A, successful what the institution is calling a “strategic evolution”.

Shares successful the institution tumbled 9% to $2 each astatine marketplace unfastened connected 12 November pursuing the announcement made aft marketplace adjacent connected 11 November. Shares closed a further 7% down by marketplace adjacent connected 12 November, reflecting capitalist concern. The biotech has a marketplace headdress of $69.8m.

Despite the pipeline shuffle, Metagenomi is inactive readying to proceed improvement of MGX-001’s site-specific genome integration strategy successful different secreted macromolecule disorders. The biotech volition besides prosecute progression of its macromolecule knockout assets targeting cardiometabolic diseases, successful concern with Ionis Pharmaceuticals, arsenic per the 11 November property release.

“We are committed to our astir compelling programmes that person the highest probability of success, and imaginable to code unmet needs and make near-term value,” said recently appointed CEO Jian Irish.

As Irish takes the relation of CEO, erstwhile CEO and institution laminitis Brian Thomas volition measurement back, though helium volition beryllium remaining connected the committee of directors.

The quality comes arsenic the institution announced $184.1m worthy of marketable securities arsenic of 30 September, arsenic per its Q3 2025 net update.

Metagenomi closed its archetypal nationalist offering (IPO) astir 2 years agone with $93.75m raised arsenic it began Nasdaq trading astatine a $15 banal price. This came amid a surge of biotech IPOs successful Q1 2024, which followed a two-year decline. Since then, the company's banal prices person plummeted by implicit 80% to the $1.86 adjacent connected 12 November.

Months aft its IPO closed, however, Metagenomi suffered a setback. In May 2024, the biotech announced that Moderna had broken-off a several-year concern to make its preclinical superior hyperoxaluria benignant 1 (PH1) programme.

Haemophilia A is the astir communal X-linked inherited bleeding disorder, caused by a assortment of loss-of-function mutations successful the FVIII protein. The World Federation of Hemophilia has identified astir 225,000 patients with haemophilia A, according to its 2024 planetary survey.

Current treatments for the disease, that affects males to a greater extent, see origin VIII replacement therapy and antibodies designed to mimic oregon heighten macromolecule function, specified arsenic Roche’s Hemlibra (emicizumab).