Layoffs

2024 was a tough year for the biopharma industry, with several companies cutting hundreds or even thousands of employees. Follow along as BioSpace tracks job cuts and restructuring initiatives throughout 2025.

While hiring activity has not yet picked up, it should do so soon, according to BioSpace Recruitment Manager Greg Clouse. Meanwhile, another year-over-year decrease in layoffs means less competition for jobs.

Less than two months after two FDA-related setbacks, Atara Biotherapeutics is again cutting its workforce in half. This time, it’s also hitting pause on two CAR T programs, including one affected by an FDA clinical hold in January.

Eisai’s cuts will affect 121 employees across the Japanese company’s U.S. operations, including 57 people at its American headquarters in Nutley, New Jersey. A company spokesperson said the pharma remains fully committed to the U.S. market.

The latest Repare Therapeutics layoffs will include its chief medical officer and could leave the biotech with fewer than 35 employees as it works to advance two Phase I clinical programs.

Around 300 FDA staffers laid off last week are being asked to return. So far, the Trump administration has terminated some 1,000 employees from the agency.

The FDA is mired in uncertainty with some staffers losing their jobs over the weekend and more potentially to come, vaccines and psychedelic therapies could be facing very different futures under newly confirmed HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Moderna continues its downward revenue slide and Merck, Regeneron, BMS and more face strong patent headwinds.

In its fourth-quarter earnings report, Moderna’s revenue was down substantially from 2023. Separately, media reports reveal anticipated cuts to the company’s digital team.

Encoded’s layoffs will mostly affect its technology and early-stage research and development functions. The move is expected to keep the biotech operational well into 2026.

Just a few months after Vir Biotechnology lost an emergency authorization for its COVID-19 antibody, Marianne de Backer stepped in as CEO to answer a critical question: What’s next?