Exscientia announced a $40 million cost-saving program on Tuesday that will lead to layoffs affecting 20% to 25% of the company’s workers.
The move, disclosed as part of a first-quarter update Tuesday morning, will affect areas across the company, including target identification, precision medicine, experimentation, engineering and infrastructure.
The 12-year-old biotech is one of the original AI-driven drug discovery companies and has grown from just a handful of employees to 483 people at the end of last year, according to its 2023 annual report.
But like many early AI companies, it has experienced the growing pains felt across the field, even as venture capital pours into the space to back new companies. Last year, Exscientia ended a trial of a cancer drug in favor of other assets. (At the time, the company said the move would not lead to cuts.) And in February, then-CEO Andrew Hopkins was fired after allegations of inappropriate employee relationships.
Exscientia said Tuesday’s actions will extend its runway by about a year, from “well into 2026” to “well into 2027.” It had about $416 million in cash, equivalents and short-term bank deposits at the end of March.
It expects to present some topline data from the dose escalation phase of its Phase 1/2 study of a CDK7 inhibitor in the second half of this year. By the end of 2024, the company plans to begin a Phase 1/2 trial of its LSD1 inhibitor in patients with acute myeloid leukemia. And Exscientia anticipates starting a Phase 1/2 test of its MALT1 inhibitor in patients with B cell malignancies in early 2025.