OXiGENE, a clinical-stage, biopharmaceutical company, has worked on a restructuring plan designed to focus its resources on the company’s highest-value clinical assets and reduce its cash utilisation.
As part of the restructuring, OXiGENE is reducing its workforce. The company has cut 20 pharmaceutical jobs or approximately 49% of its workforce.
Company’s management and board have determined that the optimal course of action is to focus its resources on advancing its Phase 2 ZYBRESTAT non-small cell lung cancer trial (FALCON), which the company believes is its “most promising clinical programme”, while reducing the level of investment in other clinical programmes, said CEO of the company, Peter Langecker.
He added, “The focusing of our clinical resources on what we believe are our most promising opportunities as well as the reduction in force is designed to strengthen our ability to achieve our key objectives for 2010 while potentially allowing us to demonstrate the therapeutic value of our clinical programs earlier.”
The company is offering severance benefits to the terminated employees and anticipates recording a charge of approximately $600,000, primarily associated with personnel-related termination costs, which will be recognised in the first quarter of 2010.
Substantially all of the charge is expected to represent cash expenditures. Beginning in the second quarter of 2010, the company expects the reduction to generate annual expense savings of approximately $2.6 million.
Plan
OXiGENE will continue to advance its high-priority Phase 2 ZYBRESTAT trial in non-small cell lung cancer (FALCON study), with updated safety and efficacy results anticipated for presentation at the upcoming American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in June 2010.
The company also plans to stop further enrollment in the Phase 2/3 FACT clinical trial in anaplastic thyroid cancer, but will continue to treat and follow all patients who are currently enrolled. A survival analysis is anticipated in early 2011. The company expects this plan to optimise its ability to gain useful additional insight into ZYBRESTAT’s antitumor activity earlier than the previously anticipated timeline, while also reducing cash utilisation in 2010 and subsequent years.
The OXi4503 Phase 1b trial in patients with hepatic tumors will continue with an interim analysis expected in mid-2010.
“Similarly, we see significant future value and opportunity in our second-generation vascular disrupting agent OXi4503, which is showing promise in acute myelogenous leukemia models and in solid tumors. We believe that our ophthalmology program is a monetiseable asset for which we intend to find an outlicensing partner,” Langecker said.
The Phase 2 FAVOR study of ZYBRESTAT in polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV), a form of macular degeneration, will continue with an interim analysis expected in the first half of 2010.
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