Geron CEO Chip Scarlett: Disappointed with results of GRN-1005.
Geron Corp. will shed 43 jobs, kill its brain cancer drug program and focus development on another cancer drug, called imetelstat, the company said Monday.
It is the second major program quashed by the Menlo Park-based biotech company (NASDAQ: GERN) in the past 13 months. Geron ended its high-profile embryonic stem cell program and cut 66 jobs in November 2011 to focus on its cancer programs.
Geron said last month that it plans to sell that operation to Alameda?s BioTime Inc.
Geron now will have 64 full-time positions.
The company also said that Chief Financial Officer Graham Cooper will leave the company, with his job assumed by Olivia Bloom, the current vice president of finance, chief accounting officer and treasurer.
Geron on Monday said that its drug GRN-1005 showed no response in a Phase II trial in fighting cancer that had spread from the breast to the brain. The company also said it couldn?t successfully enroll the same drug in another mid-stage study of non-small cell lung cancer patients with brain metastases.
Geron had licensed GRN-1005 from Angiochem Inc.
?We are very disappointed that the results of the GRN-1005 program fell short of our criteria for further development,? Geron President and CEO Dr. John ?Chip? Scarlett said in a press release. ?Our immediate focus now is on the use of imetelstat in hematologic malignancies and solid tumors with short telomeres, which represent an opportunity for significant therapeutic advances and value creation.?
Geron said the moves will halve its cash operating expenses to about $33 million in 2013. It will spend about $3 million in costs related to the most-recent job cuts and restructuring.
Ron Leuty covers biotech, higher education and China for the San Francisco Business Times.
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