Bay Area biotech company Kinnate to lay off 70% of workforce

San Diego-based cancer drug company Kinnate Biopharma Inc., which also has offices in San Francisco, will lay off 70% of its workers as part of a massive restructuring plan, the company announced Monday.

The company said in a news release that the layoffs come as part of a workforce restructuring plan based on a “strategic review of its business.” Layoffs are necessary in order to reduce operating expenses, the company said, and will leave Kinnate with 28 remaining full-time employees.

As part of its plan, Kinnate will also separate from the employees at Kinnjiu Biopharma, the company’s subsidiary in China. It also plans to stop the standalone clinical development of the drug exarafenib in order to focus on clinical trials of this medication mixed with another cancer medication, binimetinib. Development of another drug, KIN-7136, will also be paused and alternatives for exarafenib monotherapy and the drug KIN-3248 will be explored as part of the restructuring plan, the news release said.

Kinnate has offices in San Diego and San Francisco’s Presidio. 

“Today, we are taking hard but necessary steps to streamline our programs, team and operations in order to advance our research and deliver meaningful benefits to patients and shareholders alike,” Kinnate CEO Nima Farzan said in the news release. “These decisions reflect the current financing environment, oncology regulatory landscape and development timelines. We believe that reprioritizing our programs is the most effective approach to unlock the full promise of our innovative therapies.”

Kinnate went public in 2020 as a biotech company specializing in clinical-stage cancer medications. The company had $204.3 million in cash, cash equivalents and investments as of June, the news release states, which is expected to last until the second quarter of 2026. The company did not respond to SFGATE’s request for comment by publication time.