Alaunos’ runway ends before New Year’s, as TCR biotech shrinks staff, seeks sale

Alaunos Therapeutics, a TCR-T biotech formerly known as Ziopharm Oncology, will shutter its lead program, lay off 60% of staff and seek a sale or other form of transaction.

Announced after Monday’s closing bell, the move comes as the biotech’s runway dwindles to just a few months. With $18.3 million at the end of June, the Houston drugmaker predicts just enough cash to get into the fourth quarter of this year, per its update.

Alaunos anticipates the latest round of layoffs will lead to about $2.5 million to $3 million in termination-related costs and severance. The biotech did not specify the number of employees. It had 34 full-time staffers as of Valentine’s Day, according to an SEC filing.

Kevin Boyle

“[A]fter a review of the funding needs of our TCR-T Library Phase 1/2 trial and the current financial markets, the Board of Directors has made the difficult decision to limit further drug development under our clinical trial and to focus on our promising hunTR TCR discovery platform as we explore all strategic alternatives,”  CEO Kevin Boyle said in a press release.

The strategic options, which advisor Cantor Fitzgerald is helping source, could include an acquisition, merger, reverse merger, sale of pieces, partnership, capital raise or other alternatives, Alaunos said. It joins a growing list of biotechs that has sought a way out of the sometimes grueling biotech financing environment of the past two years.

The workforce reduction marks at least the third in as many years, with two rounds of cuts in 2021 under the company’s former name, Ziopharm, which came in the aftermath of an activist attack in 2020. After ditching a controlled IL-12 program, they let go about 15%, and then further laid off about half the workforce just weeks following Boyle’s arrival. The company relocated from Boston to Houston around the time of the rebranding in January 2022.

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