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Beam Therapeutics said Thursday morning it would lay off 20% of its staff — or around 100 employees — and pause or reevaluate certain programs as it looks to cut costs.
It’s a notable setback for a gene-editing company that quickly raised over $1 billion in the few years after its co-founder, David Liu, described a new form of CRISPR, called base editing, that allowed researchers to change individual letters of DNA. The biotech hired rapidly, announced its intention to treat a broad range of diseases, and received clearance to start clinical trials in cancer and sickle cell.
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Beam, however, has struggled to enroll patients in those trials. Meanwhile, the biotech stock market has stayed cold, including for gene-editing companies, whose technologies raise new regulatory, safety, and reimbursement questions. The pending approval of two gene therapies for sickle cell would also limit the market for Beam’s lead drug.
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