Olema Oncology to axe 25% of workforce

San Francisco-based Olema Oncology, a biopharma focusing on targeted therapies for women’s cancers, announced this week that it would be cutting its workforce by 25% in an attempt to prioritize the development of its lead asset.

In a recent statement, the company also announced that it has made significant progress advancing its lead program, OP-1250. The drug is a proprietary, orally-available small molecule with dual activity as both a complete estrogen receptor  antagonist and a selective ER degrader being studied for the treatment of advanced and/or metastatic estrogen receptor (ER)-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer. 

Addressing the recent restructuring and refocusing, Olema’s president and chief executive officer Sean P. Bohen said, "We are committed to realizing the full potential of OP-1250, which we believe has demonstrated a clear, differentiated advantage as a complete ER antagonist and the potential endocrine therapy of choice. Given the challenging equity market environment, we made some difficult decisions regarding our organization and earlier-stage programs.”

Just in the last few weeks several companies have made similar moves, choosing to either move away from early research and/or cutting staff in an attempt to extend the cash runway and focus on lead programs. Recently, both MorphoSys and Apexigen announcing layoffs and refocusing.