Ex-AveXis crew trims staff at Chicago-area Jaguar Gene Therapy

After Novartis acquired AveXis, executives from the leading gene therapy biotech shuffled off to form new startups looking to repeat their Zolgensma story for other diseases. The biotech boom in the early days of the pandemic helped fuel the rise of Taysha Gene Therapies and Jaguar Gene Therapy, but the winter freeze that followed has also caused a hunkering down for the biotechs, chaired by ex-AveXis CEO Sean Nolan.

Chicago-area Jaguar has let go about 20% of its staff, the company confirmed to Endpoints News. Work on its AAV gene therapies continues, a spokesperson said, noting more than 60 employees remain, with operations in Lake Forest, IL and a manufacturing facility in Durham, NC.

The layoffs are part of a broader wave of staff cullings across biotech as companies continue bracing for a tight financing market, run into trial failures or face other hurdles in the difficult drug development journey.

Sean Nolan

“Given the challenging financing environment, Jaguar made the difficult decision to reduce the size of the organization,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. An SVP of preclinical and translational medicine and an SVP of development operations departed in recent months, per updates on LinkedIn.

Nolan and crew, including unrelated CEO Joe Nolan, unveiled Jaguar in February 2021 with half a dozen AveXis vets at the helm and within months revealed a $139 million Series B led by Eli Lilly and Deerfield. The CEO told Endpoints at the time that Jaguar wasn’t looking to repeat the half-year timeframe from Series A to IPO like its fellow AveXis vets at Taysha, which has since clawed back its pipeline, laid off staff last spring and placed Sean Nolan in the CEO seat after inking a deal with Astellas.

With the Series B, Jaguar said it would expand from about 30 employees to 90 by the end of 2021. Later that year, the company announced a $125 million investment in a 174,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in North Carolina to prep for its first clinical trial, which at the time was expected to begin in 2023. More cash came through last year from JDRF T1D Fund and Samsung Ventures, at an undisclosed amount.

Joe Nolan

The team has now been scaled back, but the company says it’s still pushing forward on its three lead AAV gene therapies. That includes JAG101 for the rare genetic disease type 1 galactosemia; JAG201 for genetic cause of autism, Phelan-McDermid syndrome and others with a mutation or deletion in the SHANK3 gene; and JAG301 for type 1 diabetes.

“Jaguar will continue to explore and evaluate future financing rounds,” the spokesperson said in an email.

Removed from the pipeline on Jaguar’s website is a gene therapy for BBS1, which includes a portion of patients with the neurometabolic condition Bardet-Biedl syndrome. That is being led by researchers at a majority-owned subsidiary out of University College London known as Axovia Therapeutics. The biotech has orphan drug and rare pediatric disease tags for its candidate.

The Jaguar spokesperson said Axovia is “continuing to work to secure financing to progress their work in ciliopathies,” a broad group that includes more than 40 rare genetic diseases that impede on the function of cilia, which lie atop most cells in humans.

Jaguar is also bankrolled by ARCH Venture Partners, Goldman Sachs and Sean Nolan’s investment fund Nolan Capital.

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