Ziopharm Oncology Inc. NASDAQ: ZIOP) has announced an organizational restructuring to enable the advancement of the TCR program. The company has eliminated around 60 positions and expects that these changes can expect cash runway into 1H 2023.
Ziopharm cuts 60 positions to create cash runway to 1H 2023
CEO Kevin Boyle said, “We appreciate the many contributions the impacted employees made to Ziopharm and we commit to supporting these valued colleagues during this transition. We believe today’s strategic decision was necessary to create an organization structured and staffed for success and focused on the goal of generating clinical data in our promising TCR-T Library program. I am confident in the ability of our highly talented team to execute our strategy.”
Executive Chairman of the Board James Huang added, “The Board is fully supportive of Kevin and this capital allocation strategy and creating focus at Ziopharm. Ziopharm is singularly concentrated on being a leading TCR-T company and with this action today Kevin has demonstrated the strategic vision and leadership skills needed for our future.”
Ziopharm to dose first patients in 1H 2022
After encountering unforeseen delays due to insufficient resources at its contract manufacturer, the company also disclosed that the dosing of the first patient in the TCR-T Library Phase I/II clinical trial will be in 1H 2022. Ziopharm continues to invest in its production capabilities to speed up patient dosing. As a result, it is on track to have in-house manufacturing capabilities working in 1H of 2022 in time for the first patient dosage.
Currently, the company is focused on various strategic objectives, including creating a strong R&D organization that can generate intellectual property for novel TCRs focusing on hotspot mutations. The company will also operationalize internal production capabilities to support early-stage trials and generate clinical findings for the TCR-T experimental study. In addition, Ziopharm will continue being transparent with shareholders and act as responsible capital stewards.
