Tenaya Slashes a Third of Workforce to Fund Improvement of Cardio Gene Therapies

In a bid to maintain itself afloat into the again half of 2026, gene remedy specialist Tenaya Therapeutics on Friday kicked off a restructuring initiative that can contain the termination of 30% to 40% of its workers.

Confirming the layoff numbers to Endpoints Information on Monday, Tenaya CEO Faraz Ali mentioned the terminations will primarily have an effect on its analysis and manufacturing operations, and a few administrative posts. Tenaya expects to wrap up the layoffs by the top of the 12 months, in line with Ali. The biotech listed 97 full-time staff in its annual report for the 12 months 2024.

A Tenaya manufacturing facility in California may also grow to be dormant later this 12 months, Ali advised Endpoints, noting that whereas the corporate will retain possession of the positioning, it won’t see energetic use.

In its SEC submitting on Friday, Tenaya indicated that the restructuring program will price between $1.6 million and $2.7 million, largely in reference to severance funds and persevering with well being advantages. In change, the biotech expects to “considerably cut back” its money burn, pushing its runway out into the second half of 2026.

The restructuring won’t “affect Tenaya’s skill to execute on projected enrollment milestones or knowledge readouts,” in line with the SEC doc. Tenaya has produced sufficient of its drug merchandise to help its ongoing trials, and its manufacturing efforts proceed as deliberate. “Key capabilities to help early analysis have additionally been retained,” the biotech wrote.

Friday’s structural changes will enable Tenaya to higher bankroll the event of its investigational gene remedy, TN-201, being developed for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy related to inadequate ranges of myosin-binding protein C (myBP-C).

Tenaya on Monday launched knowledge from the Part Ib/II MyPEAK-1 trial, the place within the first three handled sufferers, TN-201 DNA efficiently reached the center, and RNA of the gene additionally elevated 13-fold over the course of the trial. Concentrations of the myBP-C protein ranges additionally rose following TN-201 therapy, suggesting that the gene remedy “is efficiently being transcribed and expressed after reaching goal cells,” in line with Tenaya’s announcement.

All three sufferers additionally noticed marked enhancements in every day actions. TN-201 therapy was protected general, with most treatment-emergent toxicities being delicate in severity and manageable or reversible.

In a observe to traders following that knowledge drop, William Blair analysts famous that whereas the MyPEAK-1 readout offered some readability relating to TN-201’s purposeful advantages, “protein expression knowledge [remain] difficult to interpret.” The biotech will proceed to evaluate MyPEAK-1 to higher perceive the hyperlink between myBP-C expression and purposeful outcomes, in line with William Blair.