Relay Therapeutics has laid off about 70 employees, the biotech's third round of cuts in less than a year.
The most recent workforce reduction, along with other restructuring efforts made over the last year, represents a 75% reduction in Relay's annual research budget, a spokesperson told Fierce Biotech on April 4.
Last year, the company laid off 30 people in October after trimming 5% of the team in July, which consisted of about 300 people total at the time.
The October resizing, which equated to about a 10% workforce reduction, was expected to be "the last of these changes," a Relay spokesperson told Fierce at the time.
Now, the biotech is saying more details will be provided about the business changes early next month during the company’s quarterly financial results call, according to the spokesperson.
“In today's environment, it was critical to make this challenging decision in order to streamline our operations, implement cost reductions and extend our cash runway to drive forward our clinical initiatives, to which we remain committed as ever,” the spokesperson said.
This includes initiating and completing a phase 3 metastatic breast cancer trial of PI3Kα inhibitor RLY-2608 in combination with fulvestrant, along with additional supportive breast cancer combination clinical trials. In September 2024, Relay reported that RLY-2608 extended progression-free survival by 9.2 months in patients with metastatic breast cancer in a first-in-human trial. Relay has positioned the drug candidate as a challenger to AstraZeneca’s Truqap (capivasertib).
Relay also hopes the cost-cutting measures will free up funds for a phase 1 trial of RLY-2608 in vascular malformations, which are genetic abnormalities present at birth that can cause complications like pain, swelling and organ damage later in life.
The Massachusetts-based biotech also plans to conduct investigational new drug (IND) application-enabling studies for new programs in Fabry disease and solid tumors with a mutation called NRAS, the spokesperson added, as well as “advance research efforts of one preclinical program focused on a high-value, previously intractable target.”
Alongside previous cost-saving initiatives, Relay discontinued work on a preclinical pan-mutant selective PI3Kα inhibitor and an oral small molecule CDK2 inhibitor, a move that the company said at the time didn't have anything to do with the layoffs.
The 2024 changes were designed to save the company about $50 million a year, Relay previously said.
The second round of layoffs came after Relay ditched an SHP2 inhibitor. The biotech decided not to pursue the asset alone after Genentech walked away from a collaboration to develop the inhibitor as a potential partner for the Roche subsidiary’s own KRAS G12C inhibitor GDC-6036.