Seres Therapeutics Reduces Workforce by 30% to Focus on Advancing Clinical Assets
Seres Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: MCRB) announced on 2/7/19 certain corporate changes to focus resources on its highest priority, clinical-stage microbiome therapeutic candidates.
“We believe that microbiome therapeutics have an important role in the future of medicine for a range of serious diseases and that Seres is well positioned to drive progress in the field with our late-stage clinical-stage programs, differentiated drug discovery and state-of-the-art manufacturing capabilities. Following a comprehensive review of our pipeline, we are concentrating our resources on obtaining clinical results from our highest-priority, late-stage clinical programs in ulcerative colitis and C. difficile infection as well as our soon-to-be initiated Phase 1b study in patients with metastatic melanoma,” said Eric Shaff, President and Chief Executive Officer of Seres Therapeutics. “Our novel microbiome drug candidates have the potential to deliver meaningful therapeutic benefit, and we believe these programs offer multiple opportunities for substantial near-term value creation.”
The Company will now concentrate on completing the recently-initiated SER-287 Phase 2b study in mild-to-moderate ulcerative colitis, obtaining results from the ongoing SER-109 Phase 3 study for recurrent C. difficile infection and advancing the SER-401 Phase 1b study, in collaboration with the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and MD Anderson Cancer Center, to evaluate augmenting checkpoint inhibitor response in patients with metastatic melanoma.
Seres continues to enroll the SER-109 Phase 3 study for patients with recurrent C. difficile infection despite the widespread use of unapproved, fecal microbiota transplantation to treat C. difficile infection. As interference from this uncontrolled procedure has impacted the enrollment rate of the Company’s placebo-controlled clinical trial, Seres is evaluating modification of the study design to expedite clinical results.
The Company will make changes to its executive team and reduce its full-time workforce by approximately 30 employees, and additional contractors, that in total represent approximately 30% of the workforce. The positions eliminated are primarily related to research, manufacturing, and general and administrative services. David Cook, Ph.D., Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer, will transition from his current role with the Company and will continue to provide consulting services to Seres with a specific focus on immuno-oncology. Matthew Henn, Ph.D., previously Executive Vice President and Head of Discovery and Microbiome R&D, has been appointed Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Henn joined Seres in 2012 and has contributed to the discovery and development of Seres’ microbiome therapeutic candidates. Prior to joining the Company, Dr. Henn served as the Director of Viral Genomics and Assistant Director of the Genome Sequencing Center for Infectious Diseases at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University.
Kallyope Inc. Appoints Industry Veteran as Chief Medical Officer
Kallyope Inc. announced on 2/5/19 that it has appointed Brett Lauring, M.D., Ph.D. to the position of Chief Medical Officer.
“We are thrilled to have Brett join the Kallyope team as our CMO. Brett is uniquely qualified for this role having both early- and late-stage development experience and having worked in multiple therapeutic areas relevant to the gut-brain axis,” commented Nancy Thornberry, CEO of Kallyope. “Brett’s expertise will be critical in advancing our current portfolio of programs and in translating the novel, actionable biology we are identifying with our platform.”
Dr. Lauring joins Kallyope from Takeda Pharmaceuticals where he was Vice President, Translational Research and Early Clinical Development, responsible for managing the clinical development of compounds for gastrointestinal diseases through proof of concept. He previously spent 11 years at Merck working in both early and late clinical development roles in multiple therapeutic areas. In his most recent role at Merck, he was the Product Development Team Leader for the ertugliflozin program, advancing the lead molecule and two fixed-dose combinations through the Phase 3 program that led to approvals in the U.S., E.U., Canada and other markets. Prior to that, Dr. Lauring was responsible for early clinical development for the diabetes therapeutic area and led numerous programs in the neuroscience and cardiovascular therapeutic areas.
Before joining Merck, Dr. Lauring was assistant professor at Columbia University’s College of Physicians & Surgeons where his laboratory elucidated novel mechanisms underlying axonal degenerative diseases. He completed his residency in anatomic pathology at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Cornell. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from NYU School of Medicine and a B.A. in philosophy from Yale.
More than 100 new gut bacteria discovered in human microbiome
Scientists working on the gut microbiome* have discovered and isolated more than 100 completely new species of bacteria from healthy people’s intestines. The study from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hudson Institute of Medical Research, Australia, and EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute, has created the most comprehensive collection of human intestinal bacteria to date. This will help researchers worldwide to investigate how our microbiome keeps us healthy, and its role in disease.
