After a year of stripping back its head count and pipeline, Carisma Therapeutics is now cutting down to the bone and laying off any staff “not deemed necessary to pursue strategic alternatives.”
The layoffs announced yesterday will see the 46 full-time employees still working at Carisma whittled down to just six, “each of whom we believe is necessary to evaluate our strategic alternatives and execute an orderly wind down,” the company explained in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
The macrophage-focused therapeutics company is in the process of “identifying and evaluating potential strategic alternatives with the goal of maximizing the value” of its remaining drug candidates. These assets include CT-2401, an off-the-shelf, in vivo mRNA/LNP, which the biotech has touted as having the potential to be a first-in-class efferocytosis therapy for advanced metabolic-associated liver disease.
There’s also CT-1119, a mesothelin-targeted CAR-monocyte Carisma had been teeing up for a phase 1 trial in China in combination with BeiGene and Novartis’ tislelizumab in patients with mesothelin-positive solid tumors.
In a related postmarket release March 31, Carisma CEO Steven Kelly admitted that the changes would be “difficult” but said the company’s leadership “believe pursuing strategic alternatives coupled with a reduction in operating costs has the potential to maximize the value of our science and other assets given the challenging funding environment.”
“We believe deeply in the potential of our liver fibrosis and oncology programs, which have shown compelling preclinical results, and are well-positioned for future development,” Kelly added. “We are focused on finding a strategic transaction that would allow this important work to continue and maximize the value of all our assets.”
Carisma entered 2025 with just $17.9 million left in the bank but said its latest plans would eke out this cash into the second half of the year.
The past 12 months have seen Carisma steadily scale back its pipeline and head count. Exactly one year ago, on April 1, 2024, the company revealed plans to lay off 37% of staff and stop development of a phase 1-stage CAR-macrophage being studied in patients with HER2-overexpressing solid tumors.
Then, last December, Carisma said it would wave goodbye to 34% of its remaining workforce, including its chief financial officer, its senior vice president of human resources and its general counsel. The biotech’s lead asset, a gene-modified autologous CAR-monocyte cell therapy designed to treat HER2-overexpressing solid tumors, was also discontinued at the time.
Carisma’s role as a cancer drug developer seems to be over, with the company explaining in the filing that it “currently [has] no intention of resuming research and development activities.” The biotech has already completed its R&D obligations as part of a CAR-M therapeutics-focused collaboration with Moderna that has seen the biopharma nominate 12 oncology targets to research further.