TRANSGENE Gives Pink Slips to 120 as Part of Restructuring Plan
June 29, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
STRASBOURG, France – French cancer drugmaker TRANSGENE S.A. will terminate 120 employees as part of a corporate restructuring plan, the company announced this morning.
The terminated positions will come primarily from Transgene’s stand-alone pharmaceutical development and bio-manufacturing divisions. The terminated employees will be provided job placement assistance in other companies owned by Institut Mérieux, Transgene’s principal shareholder. Vaccine-maker ABL, Inc., a subsidiary of Institut Mérieux, proposed to offer positions to some of the terminated employees involved with manufacturing and related activities at its Illkirch, France facility. It was not revealed how many employees could receive such an offer.
Following news of the terminations, Transgene’s stock was down more than 4 percent, trading at $4.67 per share. The restructuring will allow Transgene to focus resources on its “core business of research and development by advancing its clinical portfolio, reorganizing its research model, and outsourcing manufacturing and pharmaceutical development activities,” the company said. The plan still has to be finalized under French law.
The savings from the restructuring will allow Transgene to advance its clinical portfolio by developing immunotherapies for cancer and infectious diseases through further development of technology platforms, the company said. Part of its strategy includes increasing collaborations with academic institutions, hospitals and biopharmaceutical partners.
Transgene said it will provide additional details on its updated clinical development plan in the near future.
Earlier this month Transgene reported an increase in survival rates of patients diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer and under treatment of the company’s experimental oncology drug TG4010 MUC1. Patients with non-squamous tumors in the Phase IIb clinical trial showed an increase in progression-free survival rates and overall survival rates. In addition, patients treated with TG4010 plus chemotherapy demonstrated improved response rates and a longer median duration of response compared to the control group, the company said.
In April the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) awarded Transgene with a Special Protocol Assessment for the Phase III clinical trial of the oncolytic immunotherapy, Pexa-Vec. The study will evaluate the use of Pexa-Vec to treat patients with advanced liver cancer. The primary objective of the 600 patient trial is to determine the overall survival benefit for patients receiving Pexa-Vec followed by Bayer ’s sorafenib, compared to sorafenib alone in patients with advanced liver cancer.
Transgene is also developing a hepatitis B drug for its pipeline. In April the company said data from early clinical trials of its experimental immunotherapy TG1050 was shown to significantly reduce circulating hepatitis B DNA, reduced the circulating HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) and developed anti-HBsAg antibodies. The development of anti-HBsAg antibodies has been associated with HBV cure.
As Rumors Swirl About GlaxoSmithKline Bid, Who Could Suitors Be?
Rumors are swirling that Swiss-based Roche and U.S.-based Johnson & Johnson are eying the U.K. company for approximately $143 billion. But Roche and J&J aren’t the only companies though who have been thought could go after the elephant that is Glaxo.
Last month there was buzz that Pfizer Inc. was considering acquiring Glaxo, a year after it failed to acquire AstraZeneca PLC . Just this month over a third of respondents in a poll conducted by BioSpace believe that AstraZeneca PLC could be in the running to acquire struggling GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
So BioSpace wants to ask our readers again what they predict for this new dealmaking bonanza. Will Glaxo go—and if so, to whom?