Just finished raising 200 million dollars, and then plan to lay off all the employees?

On August 22, 2024, industry media Endpoints News reported that Tome Biosciences plans to lay off nearly all of its employees in November this year.

According to the Massachusetts state government website, Tome is set to cut 131 jobs.

Rahul Kakkar, CEO of Tome, said in a recent interview that the company currently has just over 130 employees.

In this round of layoffs, all employees are "unlucky".

It is reported that Tome announced at this week's all-staff meeting that it will stop laboratory work and the company is looking for opportunities to be acquired.

01

In recent years, the enthusiasm for investment in the biopharmaceutical field has cooled with the fading of the COVID-19 pandemic. Layoffs, bankruptcy liquidation, and mergers and acquisitions have become frequent occurrences.

It should be a common sight, but the key point is that Tome is a startup Biotech that just announced its exit from stealth mode in December 2023.

And the company also announced at the same time that it had raised $213 million in Series A and B financing.

In May of this year, Tome also announced at the ASGCT (American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy) conference that its technology platform - Integrase-Mediated Programmable Genome Integration (I-PGI) technology, successfully achieved the writing of DNA with a length exceeding 30kb.

However, from Tome's high-profile debut to its quiet departure, it only took 9 months. Its bloom is shorter than the overnight popularity of domestic net reds.

Kakkar said in the interview that the biggest difficulty Tome is facing now is that there is no money and it is not possible to raise money. Is it possible that $213 million can only support 9 months? It feels like Musk's rocket is not burning money faster than him.

02

In fact, Tome was founded in 2021 by two scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Omar Abudayyeh and Jonathan Gootenberg.

Both are students of Professor Feng Zhang.

In 2020, the two founders of Tome developed a gene-editing tool called PASTE, which can insert large DNA sequences into precise locations in the genome while reducing the risk of off-target effects.

Compared with the traditional CRISPR-Cas9 system, PGI technology can achieve precise genome editing without causing double-strand breaks.

At the beginning of Tome's public appearance, the company's Chief Scientific Officer John Finn did not hesitate to praise, calling the technology the final chapter of genomics.

It is worth mentioning that PASTE has a lot in common with another technology called PRIME, which scientists at the Broad Institute, including David Liu, have also shown can be used to insert large segments of DNA.

PASTE just added an integrase, but the working form and output of this system are quite different from PRIME, especially in writing longer fragments.

In April 2024, Tome announced that the PASTE technology had been granted a patent.

Back to the main point, although the patent issue has been resolved, John Finn did not see the final chapter of genomics, but after 9 months, he saw the final chapter of his own company.

03

$213 million is not a small amount, enough for three years of operating costs.

The reason why Tome has come to this point due to financial issues is related to its "impatient" nature.

Not long after Tome made its public appearance in 2023, on January 2, 2024, it announced the acquisition of DNA editing company Replace Therapeutics for $65 million in cash and near-term milestone payments.

Two weeks later, on January 17, Tome reached a technical cooperation with the leader in lipid nanoparticle (LNP) Genevant Sciences, with a total transaction value of about $114.3 million.

The two transactions are nearly $180 million, how much is left of the $200 million in financing? Don't consider operating costs?

Tome completed its Series A financing in the fall of 2021, and the company expanded rapidly in 2022, completing its Series B financing in the third quarter of 2023. The smooth financing process led Kakkar to misjudge the current situation.

Tome said in an interview, "For a whole year, the company has been trying to raise $120 million to $180 million in Series C financing to fund its IND-enabling research and preclinical GMP production required for clinical trials. But the funds have never been in place.

At present, Tome is discussing mergers and acquisitions with at least three companies. How the future will be, DrugTimes will continue to pay attention and report timely.

【Editor’s note】The above content (~7000 words) is a quick translation of a Chinese article by DrugTimes team. To read the original article, please click here . All comments are warmly welcome. Many thanks!