Imara Cuts Workforce by 83 Percent, Joining Growing List of Companies Trying to Stay Afloat

Imara, in a brief SEC filing, said it will cut its workforce by 83 percent across the company, retaining only six full-time employees.

As part of the workforce reduction, Chief Medical Officer Kenneth Attie will depart from Imara effective April 20, 2022.

The reduction comes just two weeks after the company reported disappointing results from two phase 2 trials of its experimental treatment for sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia. Based on these results, Imara’s Board decided to discontinue development of tovinontrine in both these indications, and in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, as well as to discontinue its development plans with respect to preclinical candidate IMR-261 for the treatment of rare inherited hemoglobin disorders.

Imara plans to complete the workforce reduction by the end of the second quarter of 2022, which will substantially reduce operating expenses while it assesses its strategic options to maximize shareholder value.

Trial disappointments aside, Imara joins a growing list of publicly traded biotech companies that have announced layoffs since public market sentiment began souring toward biotech last fall and many companies’ shares are trading at a fraction of where they were just one year ago.

Imara’s shares were trading around $1.20 when it announced the restructuring, compared to the upper $20s range two years ago.