Oncology and respiratory drug developer invoX Pharma is fine-tuning its pipeline and expects to cut about one-third of its employees, the company confirmed to Endpoints News.
London-based invoX has prioritized its CD137/PD-L1 bispecific known as FS222, a company spokesperson told Endpoints by email on Monday. The company thinks the asset, derived from its acquisition of F-star last year, “has the greatest potential to improve the lives of patients,” the spokesperson wrote. Additional Phase 1 data were presented last month at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology confab in Chicago.
The biotech had also been working on an OX40/CD137 program for solid tumors, a second-generation STING agonist and a LAG-3/PD-L1 project, among others. InvoX was established by Hong Kong-listed Sino Biopharm in 2021.
“As a result of this prioritisation, we have initiated a restructuring of the invoX organisation,” the spokesperson said, noting the changes will lead to job losses. A consultation process has begun with “employees who are at risk of redundancy.”
InvoX estimates 60 roles will be cut, “most of which will be from our oncology R&D team,” the spokesperson added. About 180 people worked at invoX as of Sino’s January presentation at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. The spokesperson confirmed invoX employed 180 people prior to the restructuring.
Last year, it completed the acquisition of F-star after holdups from the US government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. Takeda has inked multiple pacts with F-star.
Aside from a headquarters in London, invoX also has a regional office and antibody research lab in Cambridge, UK. It also has a respiratory lab near Brussels as a result of its June 2021 acquisition of Belgian drug-device maker Softhale. It also has a stake in mRNA startup pHion Therapeutics, a UK biotech working on vaccines for viral infections and cancer.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct that invoX had about 180 employees, not 80, prior to the restructuring.