Eikon Therapeutics, a well-funded Bay Area biotech startup working to develop both drugs and a lab tool for other researchers, is laying off dozens of employees — and pointing blame at the Donald Trump administration.
The startup, which has raised more than $1.1 billion since its 2019 founding, announced the layoff round in a WARN document filed with state officials on Wednesday, as is generally required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act in the event of large layoffs. Eikon is cutting 55 workers from its office in Millbrae, the startup wrote, including multiple directors and a slate of scientists and engineers.
In a Wednesday LinkedIn post, Eikon wrote that the layoff represents less than 15% of the company’s headcount and that its drug development programs will continue as planned. But it also announced a paapply to its lab hardware project, with Eikon throwing blame at the new administration, which, through the Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-led Department of Health and Human Services, has cut or frozen billions of dollars in federal support for research.
“Government funding cuts have constrained the budreceives of academic institutions, necessitating that we paapply development of our advanced instruments intconcludeed for external researchers,” the company wrote. “The market for these instruments has clearly evaporated.”
Eikon’s layoffs are tied to that paapply, CEO Roger Perlmutter notified SFGATE via email Thursday. He wrote that the cuts are focapplyd on the group of employees who were working on an advanced benchtop instrument that would assist other researchers “pursue the sort of studies that we routinely conduct in-hoapply.” One such instrument referenced on Eikon’s website assists analyze molecular interactions.
Perlmutter declared the laid-off workers will receive expanded severance pay, benefits assistance and career transition services.
Eikon’s LinkedIn announcement also pinned some blame for the cuts on “reduced investment in the global biotechnology sector” and posited that “prudence demands that Eikon sharpen its focus and generate efficiencies in our operations.”
Some sectors of biotech have struggled to raise cash over the past 16 months, especially compared with 2019, 2020 and 2021, when low interest rates and a massive COVID-19 vaccine push flooded billions of dollars of investment into businesses. SFGATE has reported over the past year on a parade of once-high-flying biotech companies slashing staff or shutting down, sometimes citing the difficulty of raising new cash.
But until now, Eikon seemed to be immune. The company’s Series C funding round, in 2023, totaled nearly $106 million, it wrote at the time. And in February, Eikon closed a Series D funding round of $350.7 million, touting drug prospects for melanoma and breast, ovarian, prostate, brain and pancreatic cancers.
Eikon’s chief financial officer, Alfred Bowie, wrote on LinkedIn Wednesday that the company is “well positioned with significant cash runway to pursue our clinical programs.” His LinkedIn profile even notes “We are hiring!” and the company’s website does have various clinical research roles open on its careers page. But, Bowie wrote in the post, some workers who assisted “build and scale” Eikon are losing their jobs in this cut.
“Any team would be lucky to welcome these great people into their ranks,” Bowie wrote, “and I am sad to see them leave us.”
Work at a Bay Area tech company and want to talk? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at stephen.council@sfgate.com or on Signal at 628-204-5452.
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