OncoGenex Pink-Slips 27% of Staff to Save Money for Ongoing Clinical Trials

OncoGenex Pink-Slips 27% of Staff to Save Money for Ongoing Clinical Trials
February 5, 2016
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

Bothell, Wash.-based OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced yesterday that it will be cutting about 27 percent of staff to save money for ongoing clinical trials.

By making the cuts to employees and consultants, OncoGenex believes it will be able to extend its “cash runway into the third quarter of 2017.” The company reported it had $55.2 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments as of Dec. 31.

There will apparently be other cuts in operating expenses, although OncoGenex did not specify what those were, except to say “the elimination of certain planned expenditures not required for the completion of ongoing trials.”

Currently OncoGenex is focused on several different programs, and expects a number of milestone announcements over the next year and a half.

Those include its AFFINITY Phase III clinical trial, which is examining custirsen in combination with cabazitaxel as a second-line treatment for castrate-resistant prostate cancer. OncoGenex expects final data for its “intent-to-treat population” in the third quarter of this year.

OncoGenex’s ENSPIRIT is a Phase III clinical trial evaluating custirsen in combination with docetaxel as a second-line treatment for non-small cell lung cancer. Final analysis of data is expected in the first half of 2017.

In the second half of this year, the company expects final results for its Borealis-2 Phase II clinical trial of apatorsen in combination with docetaxel versus docataxel alone in patients with advanced or metastatic bladder cancer.

OncoGenex also has a Spruce Phase II clinical trial that is studying apatorsen with carboplatin and pemetrexed chemotherapy in patients with previously untreated advanced non-squamous NSCLC, with results expected in the second half of this year.

And finally, the company is preparing to submit an investigational new drug (IND) application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for apatorsen for intravesical administration combined with Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) to treat patients with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer.

On Jan. 20, the company announced disappointing results in the Spruce trial. OncoGenex indicated that the drug combination did not show statistical significance needed to demonstrate progression-free survival (PFS) benefits. There were some positive indications of PFS in a subset of patients that had a high baseline serum Hsp27 status who were then treated with apatorsen.

“We look forward to following the Spruce study through overall survival this year to determine if apatorsen can provide a treatment benefit for this population of lung cancer patients,” said David Spigel, the principal investigator, and director, lung cancer research program and chief scientific officer for Sarah Cannon Research Institute, in a statement. “Despite recent advances including exciting immunotherapies, patients with lung cancer still have a significant need for new treatment options that extend survival. Chemotherapy remains a standard of care and an important option for people with advanced disease.”

“Overall survival results from Spruce expected later this year will inform the future development of apatorsen in lung cancer,” said Scott Cormack, president and chief executive officer of OncoGenex, in a statement. “We plan to continue to evaluate a potential correlation between Hsp27 and survival benefit in this and other apatorsen trials.”

OncoGenex has been down lately. Shares traded on July 27, 2015 for $3.60, dropped to $2.12 on Aug. 26, then rose back to $3.06 on Sept. 3. Shares then dropped again to $1.98 on Nov. 2, popped back to $2.73 on Nov. 27, then plunged to $1.16 on Dec. 7. Shares are currently trading for $0.78 per share.

On Jan. 29, Zacks Investment reiterated a “buy” for OncoGenex in a report to investors. Zacks said, “OncoGenex has a deep oncology pipeline, with each product candidate having a distinct mechanism of action and representing a unique opportunity for cancer drug development.”

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