Alector Trims Staff, Focuses on Partnered Neurology Programs with GSK and AbbVie

Rare Daily Staff

Alector, in an SEC filing, said it has started to reduce its workforce by approximately 11 percent to better align its resources with a strategic prioritization of its late-stage immuno-neurology programs that was announced last month.

These programs include its progranulin candidate latozinemab, being developed with GSK, and its TREMS2 program in collaboration with AbbVie.

The cuts are expected to impact approximately 30 employees across the organization. The Company continues to expect that its existing cash, cash equivalents and investments will enable it to fund its operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements through 2025, beyond multiple key clinical milestones for its prioritized late-stage programs.

Alector is currently enrolling patients in a pivotal phase 3 trial for latozinemab (AL001) in at-risk and symptomatic patients with frontotemporal dementia due to a progranulin gene mutation (FTD-GRN). Alector is preparing to meet with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in mid-2023 to discuss statistical analysis plans based on emerging knowledge in the field that may enable completion of the study with fewer patients and/or a shorter treatment duration, with a data readout in early 2025 pending regulatory feedback.

Latozinemab is an antibody designed to elevate levels of progranulin, a key regulator of immune activity in the brain and is one of two antibodies partnered with GSK in 2021 for which Alector received $700 million upfront.

Alector’s AL002 targets TREM2 to increase TREM2 signaling and the functionality of microglia. In collaboration with AbbVie, it is currently being studied in a phase 2 trial to evaluate its efficacy and safety in slow progressing early Alzheimer’s disease patients. AbbVie has an exclusive option to globally develop and commercialize the program, which if exercised, would prompt a $250 million payment to Alector.

Photo: Arnon Rosenthal, CEO of Alector