Seres Therapeutics is laying off a quarter of its workforce as the microbiome biopharma conserves resources to take its bloodstream infection preventive treatment into phase 2.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company has been seeking out money to help take the asset, dubbed SER-155, into a midstage study for the prevention of bloodstream infections in adults undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant.
The biopharma recently had “constructive” conversations with the FDA about the study’s protocol and expects to read out interim results within 12 months of the 248-person trial going live.
But there’s a catch—Seres' dwindling cash reserves are due to run out by March 2026. In fact, Seres has been warning for a while that it was “continu[ing] to evaluate cost reduction actions” that offer some financial wriggle room.
Tuesday morning, Seres confirmed that one of these actions would involve reducing its workforce by 25%. Employees who are “most critical” for the preparations for the phase 2 study will be spared, according to a Sept. 23 release. The redundancies are expected to cost between $1 million and $1.4 million in severance fees.
“While we advance SER-155 phase 2 study start-up activities, we continue to engage in active discussions with multiple parties seeking capital to initiate the study, and to support our broader portfolio of product candidates with applications for inflammatory diseases,” Seres co-CEOs Thomas DesRosier and Marella Thorell said in the release.
“The cost reduction actions, and the resultant operating runway extension, are intended to provide the company with additional opportunity to advance these strategic priorities,” the CEOs added.
Combined with additional “streamlining operations,” the layoffs should stretch Seres’ cash runway “well into” the second quarter of next year.
Seres is best known for Vowst, which become the first oral microbiome product to receive FDA approval as a therapeutic. The biopharma sold the rights to the Clostridioides difficile infection therapy to its commercialization partner Nestlé Health Science a year ago.
Seres has been struggling to fund its pipeline for a while. Back in November 2023, the company laid off about 160 employees to refocus on Vowst and SER-155.