Targacept cuts over a third of its staff
pharmafile | October 10, 2012 | News story | Research and Development |
Targacept is to make 38% of its staff redundant and cease laboratory operations by the end of the year as the fall-out from its pipeline problems bites hard.
In March the North Carolina-based bipharma company announced it would not file depression drug TC-5214, developed with AstraZeneca since 2009, for regulatory review.
Disappointing Phase III results, where TC-5214 was being tested as an add-on therapy to an antidepressant in patients with major depressive disorder, sealed the investigational drug’s fate.
Now Targacept says the measures it has been forced to take should generate annual savings of $9.6 million from next year, allowing it to keep operating until at least 2015.
“This is a difficult step for us to take, as many talented professionals who have contributed significantly to Targacept over the years will be leaving the company,” said the firm’s chairman Mark Skaletsky.
The firm will continue with 43 employees, and says it will take a hit of $1.5 million in one-off severance payments and other redundancy-related charges in the fourth quarter of 2012.
The job cuts are actually slightly less drastic than predicted back in May, when Targacept said it would have to lose 46% of its workforce.
The company said the new measures would “align its resources more closely with corporate objectives that include realising the value potential of its clinical programs and conserving capital to best position the company for future opportunities”.
Targacept has available cash and investments of around $195 million, and still has various products in Phase II.
These include two with AstraZeneca for Alzheimer’s Disease (AZD3480 and TC-6683), one for inflammatory disorders (TC-6987) and another (TC-5619) for schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s and ADHD.
All its candidates are designed to modulate a class of molecular targets, called neuronal nicotinic receptors (NNRs), which are involved in regulating nervous system activity.
