The Chinese biopharma company will be closing its U.S. headquarters and wet lab in the D.C. suburbs, according to scientists who recently lost their jobs.
Pictured: a collage depicting a secret layoff/ Nicole Bean for BioSpace
Innovent Biologics has eliminated its entire research team at its U.S. headquarters and wet lab in Rockville, Md., and will close the facility in the near future, BioSpace has learned.
Several former employees posted on LinkedIn about the layoffs, which took place near the end of February. The site closure has not yet been completed.
Dowdy Jackson, former executive director of antibody–drug conjugate biology at Innovent Bio, recently posted about being laid off by the Suzhou, China–based biotech. Jacob Smith, a research scientist in medicinal chemistry, also wrote on LinkedIn about losing a job as a result of the shutdown.
Innovent’s media representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
The Rockville lab mostly conducted research in the growing area of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs); that work will now shift to China, according to a former employee. Innovent disclosed that it had about 1,500 R&D employees worldwide as of midyear 2023, up from 1,071 a year earlier. Only a few dozen worked at the Maryland facility.
Last week, the company announced positive results of its IBI311 anti-IGF-1R monoclonal antibody in two trials. Innovent scientists ran a Phase I trial of the biologic in healthy subjects and a Phase II trial in a cohort with thyroid eye disease.
According to a Bank of America research report from January, obtained through AlphaSense, Innovent also has several Phase III candidates, including a GLP-1 and glucagon receptor dual agonists known as IBI362.
