Bluebird bio to cut 25% of jobs in fresh bid to battle cash crunch
Adds CEO statement in paragraph 5, background throughout
Sept 24 (Reuters) -Bluebird bio BLUE.O will lay off about 25% of its workforce, or 95 employees, the gene therapy maker said on Tuesday, in a second major restructuring in two years as the company focuses on launching its treatments amid a cash crunch.
The company's shares rose 5% to 51 cents, a far cry from about $150 they traded in 2018.
The latest restructuring will reduce by 20% its cash operating expenses by the third quarter of 2025, the company said.
Bluebird bio, which has been raising going concern doubts for the past two years, had cut 30% of its jobs to save $160 million in costs in 2022.
CEO Andrew Obenshain said the latest restructuring would help support the marketing of its three gene therapies, including the recently approved sickle cell disease treatment, Lyfgenia.
Lyfgenia, which has a serious safety warning about blood cancer risk, is priced nearly $1 million higher than its rival Casgevy from Vertex Pharmaceuticals VRTX.O and CRISPR Therapeutics CRSP.BN.
Lyfgenia's higher price could restrict access to the treatment, analysts have said, with some of them saying that bluebird would need to explore options such as a sale to launch the therapies.
Massachusetts-based bluebird, which had 375 employees as of June 2024, had a market value of about $95 million as of last close.
Reporting by Christy Santhosh; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar
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