Companies Beam Therapeutics Inc FollowOct 19 (Reuters) - Beam Therapeutics (BEAM.O) said on Thursday it will focus on developing its experimental sickle cell disease treatments and reduce about 20% of its current workforce, or 100 employees, as part of a restructuring plan.
The gene-editing specialist expects to incur one-time expenses of about $6.6 million related to the workforce reduction, which it plans to complete in the fourth quarter.
Its experimental sickle cell disease treatments include early-stage candidate BEAM-101, which activates fetal hemoglobin, the dominant form of hemoglobin present in the fetus during gestation.
Beam will pause the development of its hepatitis B virus candidate, currently being evaluated in lab studies, and explore partnership opportunities for it.
Reporting by Bhanvi Satija and Christy Santhosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi MajumdarOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Persons:
Beam, David Liu, Feng Zhang, J Keith Joung, Bhanvi Satija, Christy Santhosh, Shilpi Majumdar
Organizations:
Beam Therapeutics, U.S . Food, Drug Administration, Thomson
Locations:
Cambridge , Massachusetts, Bengaluru