Tome Biosciences, a gene editing startup that launched in late 2023 with $213 million in funding, will eliminate 131 positions in November, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act notice.
Gene editing startup Tome Biosciences is letting go of 131 employees, nearly all of its headcount, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act notice filed on Friday in Massachusetts.
The layoffs will take place from Nov. 1 through Nov. 14, according to the filing. Tome CEO Rahul Kakkar in a statement to Endpoints News declined to provide more details regarding the reorganization—including whether a small group will stay on to manage the company as it winds down its operations.
Before the restructuring, Tome had over 130 employees, Kakkar told Endpoints, noting that the layoffs had not been announced during a company meeting early last week. The CEO also refuted reports that the startup had a Nov. 1 deadline to look for a buyer. Tome is currently in talks with at least three companies interested in its pipeline or platform, according to Kakkar.
The layoffs come after news circulated last week that unfavorable market forces had forced Tome to wind down its operations and look at strategic options for the company.
The startup “is operating at a reduced capacity, maintaining core expertise,” a spokesperson told STAT News, which first reported the development last week. “We are in ongoing confidential conversations with multiple parties to explore strategic options,” the spokesperson added, however refusing to detail what changes the start-up is considering and how these might affect its employees and intellectual properties.
Tome launched in December 2023 with $213 million in Series A and Series B funding to advance its programmable genomic integration (PGI) platform, which uses proprietary enzymes to insert or write genes without having to introduce double-stranded DNA breaks. Its lead program integrase-PGI incorporates large fragments of DNA, with some even stretching longer than 30kb of genetic code.
At the time of its launch, Kakkar called the PGI platform “revolutionary” with the potential to “reprogram the human genome.” PGI could yield cures for rare monogenic diseases, regardless of genetic heterogeneity, according to the CEO.
However, the market did not share Kakkar’s enthusiasm. A company spokesperson in a statement to STAT News said that “investor sentiment had shifted dramatically across the gene editing space,” leaving Tome with few viable options but to scale back.
Tome’s troubles reflect the difficulties that preclinical biotechs face in the current market environment, which heavily prefers clinical-stage companies with well-defined niches and established technologies.
In February 2024, preclinical firm Metagenomi tried its luck in the lukewarm biotech IPO market with a $94 million offering. The company’s shares tanked 30% the day after its Nasdaq debut. In May 2024, Metagenomi lost a high-profile partnership with Moderna, which abandoned its gene editing collaboration with the biotech as part of a strategic prioritization initiative.
