BioXcel Therapeutics to lay off over 100 employees

BioXcel plans to lay off 110 workers, or 58% of its workforce, as part of a restructuring that aims to reduce the biotech’s cash burn.

BioXcel currently has 190 employees, and it said Monday in its second-quarter earnings release that the workforce reductions will primarily impact BioXcel’s commercial organization. The company wants to reduce its cash burn by 50% to around $80 million a year. It currently has enough cash to last through the middle of next year.

Vimal Mehta

“This decision to reduce our workforce was extremely difficult for the management team and the board but was necessitated by a variety of market and business factors,” BioXcel CEO Vimal Mehta said on an earnings call on Monday.

BioXcel is planning to change its commercial strategy for Igalmi, which was approved in 2022 to treat agitation associated with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder in adults. The medication is self-administered but has to be done under the supervision of a clinician.

Though previous commercial efforts have focused on hospitals, the company now plans to target pharmacies and outpatient offices.

“This shift is largely due to the fact that the hospital setting proved to be more difficult to penetrate than we originally anticipated, particularly in a challenging post-COVID environment,” Mehta said on the call.

The company said it is suspending programs that are “no longer core” to its business and will focus on developing the same drug as an at-home treatment for schizophrenia, bipolar disorders and mild to moderate dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease.

The company’s stock $BTAI tumbled about 45% on Monday morning.

BioXcel revealed in June that a principal investigator for a study assessing Igalmi in patients with Alzheimer’s was cited by the FDA for bad practices that included fabricating an email related to a serious adverse event.

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