Takeda has provided more detail on the workforce impact of its recently announced restructuring, indicating that approximately 634 employees in the United States could be affected, according to a WARN filing.
The company began informing staff on March 25, coinciding with the rollout of its broader business transformation plan, which focuses on simplifying corporate functions and improving operational efficiency. Takeda noted, however, that the final number of impacted employees may shift as some workers explore and secure redeployment opportunities within its global organization.
Of the total, 247 positions are tied to Takeda’s Cambridge, Massachusetts site, with layoffs expected to occur between July 1, 2026, and Dec. 31, 2027. The remaining 387 roles are spread across other U.S. locations, though specific details on those sites have not yet been disclosed.
Novartis is continuing its series of workforce reductions, with 114 employees at its East Hanover, New Jersey facility set to be affected, according to a WARN filing with state authorities. The layoffs are scheduled to take place between June 26 and Nov. 11, though the company has not disclosed the specific reason behind this latest round of cuts.
This move follows multiple downsizing efforts over the past year. In March 2025, Novartis eliminated more than 460 roles, many of them based at the same East Hanover site. The company carried out additional cuts in September, affecting nearly 60 employees at that location.
Further reductions came in November 2025, when approximately 550 full-time positions were targeted, this time impacting staff in Switzerland.
Evonik is set to lay off 34 employees as part of its plan to shut down a production facility in Havre de Grace, Maryland, according to a WARN notice. The job cuts will be implemented between June 30 and the end of the year.
The Germany-based specialty chemicals company, which supplies materials such as silica for pharmaceutical and industrial applications, first revealed plans to close the Maryland plant in January 2025. At the same time, it also announced the shutdown of another site in Waterford, New York, as part of a broader effort to improve operational efficiency.
While manufacturing operations in Maryland will be discontinued, Evonik previously stated that its local research and development center and laboratory facilities will remain operational and will not be impacted by the closure.
Takeda is preparing a broad organizational transformation aimed at streamlining corporate functions and optimizing resource allocation, though the company has not specified whether workforce reductions will be part of the plan. In a March 25 statement, CEO-Elect Julie Kim emphasized the goal of “strategically prioritizing resources and positioning ourselves for long-term growth and success in the next era.”
The restructuring is expected to generate savings of over 200 billion yen (approximately $1.25 billion) by fiscal year 2028.
Takeda has a recent history of layoffs. In 2024 and early 2025, nearly 1,500 employees across the U.S. and Austria were let go, following a 57% decline in profit for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024. Additional reductions occurred in October 2025, when 137 employees were dismissed as the company scaled back its investment in cell therapy programs to focus on efficiency and pipeline priorities.
In January 2026, Takeda further cut 243 positions across its U.S. operations, primarily affecting neuroscience commercialization teams. A company spokesperson noted that the move was designed to help navigate the impending loss of exclusivity for Trintellix, a treatment for major depressive disorder.
Following a disappointing Phase 3 readout in pulmonary arterial hypertension, Gossamer Bio has initiated a broad cost-cutting effort that will eliminate approximately 77 positions, representing nearly half of its workforce. The company expects to largely complete the layoffs by the end of May.
Announced in Gossamer’s March 17 annual report, the reductions aim to conserve cash as the company determines the future of its drug candidate, seralutinib, after the late-stage trial setback. Details on which offices will be affected remain unclear, though Gossamer operates its headquarters in San Diego and maintains an additional office in Dublin.
Israel-based BiomX implemented significant staff reductions in December as part of a broader cost-control strategy, according to the company’s March 19 annual report.
The layoffs followed BiomX’s decision to discontinue its multi-phage therapy BX004, which was being studied in a Phase 2b trial for cystic fibrosis patients with chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections. The move came after an external data monitoring committee highlighted concerns, and the company’s internal review found unexpectedly high adverse event rates associated with the therapy.
In a March 19 letter to shareholders, CEO Michael Oster outlined additional cost-saving initiatives and indicated that the company is exploring strategic shifts into sectors with strong global demand for advanced technologies, citing defense-related applications as one potential avenue.
Bicycle Therapeutics is reducing its workforce by roughly 30% as part of a wider strategic reprioritization, according to its 2025 annual report published March 17. With 288 full-time employees as of Dec. 31, 2025, this round of layoffs could affect around 86 staff members.
A company spokesperson confirmed that approximately 200 employees will remain after the reorganization. The reductions coincide with a shift in focus away from the company’s lead cancer therapy, zelenectide, after the FDA indicated that one of its ongoing studies no longer constitutes a valid approval pathway for metastatic urothelial carcinoma.
As part of deprioritizing zelenectide, Bicycle will also discontinue two Phase 1/2 clinical trials for the drug, one targeting breast cancer and the other non-small cell lung cancer.
As INOVIO moves closer to what could become its first commercial product launch, the company has implemented targeted job cuts affecting roles not directly tied to advancing its lead candidate, INO-3107, toward U.S. approval. The decision was outlined in a March 13 announcement.
The company has not disclosed the exact number of employees impacted or the precise timing of the layoffs. However, based on public filings, INOVIO’s workforce declined from 134 full-time employees in February 2025 to 112 as of March 11, 2026, indicating that roughly 16% of its staff may have been affected.
INO-3107 is an investigational DNA-based immunotherapy designed to trigger an immune response against HPV-6 and HPV-11. The therapy is being developed to treat recurrent respiratory papillomatosis, a rare disease affecting the respiratory tract.
According to the company’s latest update, a regulatory decision from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is anticipated on or before Oct. 30.
Vistagen Therapeutics has reduced its workforce by roughly 20% as part of an effort to conserve capital and concentrate resources on advancing its nasal spray candidate fasedienol in clinical trials. The layoffs were carried out on March 5, according to a March 11 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The South San Francisco–based biotech reported 59 employees as of Dec. 31 in its most recent quarterly report, suggesting that about a dozen positions were affected by the reduction.
The company is currently focused on developing fasedienol as an acute treatment for social anxiety disorder. However, the program faced a setback in December when the Phase 3 PALISADE-3 trial failed to achieve a statistically significant improvement in anxiety symptoms compared with placebo. Vistagen is now concentrating on the PALISADE-4 Phase 3 study, with topline data anticipated in the first half of the year.
Vistagen reported $61.8 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities as of Dec. 31, down from $77.2 million at the end of September. While the company previously warned that its funds might not sustain operations for more than a year, the latest filing suggests its cash runway could now extend into 2027.
German biotech Evotec is continuing its strategic overhaul, a process that could eliminate as many as 800 jobs worldwide. The company disclosed the potential workforce reduction in a March 11 update outlining its broader effort to streamline operations and position the business for future growth.
The cuts will affect employees across Evotec’s 14 global locations. As part of the restructuring plan, the company intends to reduce its number of sites to about 10 within the next two years while shrinking its global footprint.
Evotec expects the initial financial impact of the restructuring to appear in the second half of 2026, with the program largely completed by the end of 2027.
On the same day, the biotech released preliminary results for 2025, reporting unaudited group revenue of roughly €788 million (about $909 million).
Consumer health company Reckitt Benckiser plans to cut 62 positions at its U.S. office in Parsippany, New Jersey, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filing with the state. The layoffs began March 2 and are expected to continue through Aug. 31.
The U.K.-based company manufactures Mucinex, a medication designed to relieve chest congestion. In its 2025 financial results, Reckitt reported ￡10.234 billion (about $13.68 billion) in core earnings, representing a 5.2% increase from the previous year. However, Mucinex experienced a challenging period with sales falling by a mid- to high-single-digit percentage.
This is not the first workforce reduction at the Parsippany site. In April 2025, the company also eliminated 190 roles at the same location.
Horizon Therapeutics, now part of Amgen, will lay off 22 employees at its Rockville, Maryland facility. According to a WARN notice filed with state authorities, the job cuts are scheduled to take effect on May 8.
Amgen agreed to acquire the rare disease specialist in late 2022 for $26.4 billion. After facing a temporary challenge from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the transaction was finalized in October 2023.
Shortly after the deal closed, Amgen reduced overlapping roles within the newly acquired subsidiary, eliminating about 350 positions, a spokesperson previously confirmed.
San Diego–based startup f5 Therapeutics is shutting down operations, according to a LinkedIn post from CEO Gary Choy, who cited the challenging funding environment facing early-stage biotech companies.
Choy noted that he had spent six years developing the company, but the downturn in investment for emerging biotech platforms ultimately proved difficult to overcome. The company appears to have fewer than 10 employees based on its LinkedIn profile, though the exact number affected has not been confirmed.
F5 Therapeutics focused on molecular glue technologies developed through its proprietary NExMod platform, which uses phenotypic screening to uncover new drug targets for diseases that have traditionally been difficult to treat.
Before closing, the company had identified 11 promising biological targets not yet actively pursued by other firms. Choy said funding for new biotech platforms has reached “multi-year lows,” forcing many startups with strong scientific foundations to shut down.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals has initiated a “functional reorganization” that will result in the loss of 20 jobs in Massachusetts, according to information confirmed by a company spokesperson on March 6. The biotech employed roughly 6,400 people worldwide as of Dec. 31, 2025.
The company previously reduced its workforce in June 2025, eliminating 140 positions in Rhode Island after consolidating three facilities in Providence into a single location.
Vertex has faced challenges in commercializing its gene therapy Casgevy. In 2024, only 64 patients received the treatment for sickle cell disease or transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia.
Despite the slow start, company leadership expects the therapy to gain traction. Chief Financial Officer Charles Wagner recently said patient uptake should increase significantly this year compared with 2025.
In a bid to move quickly to clinical development, Alltrna is letting go of 19 employees, representing around 35% of its current headcount. The move, a company spokesperson confirmed to Fierce Biotech on March 5, will help “position Alltrna for success as we accelerate toward the clinic with our first engineered tRNA drug candidate.”
Alltrna will have 36 employees left after the layoffs, Fierce reported.
Based in Massachusetts and founded by Flagship Pioneering, Alltrna is working on tRNA-based medicines, which, according to its website, have the potential to treat all diseases caused by a premature termination codon. Its most mature program addresses genetic liver diseases including phenylketonuria and urea cycle disorders.
The biotech last laid staff off in August 2025, parting ways with eight employees as it similarly sought to realign resources as it approached the clinic.
With its annual report now out, Bayer’s 2025 cuts have come into focus. The Germany-based pharma shed about 4,700 employees, dropping from 92,815 staffers on Dec. 31, 2024, to 88,078 at the end of last year. The bulk of the cuts happened in the first nine months, as the company’s Q4 employee count (88,078) was down by around 400 compared to Q3 (88,502).
The slowed pace of layoffs was expected. During a Q3 earnings call in November, Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said that moving forward, he anticipated that cuts would continue but described them as “incremental.”
The pharma began significantly downsizing its workforce in early 2024, after Anderson noted disappointment in business performance and the company debuted a new operating model that included a restructuring initiative.
According to the 2025 annual report, last year Bayer’s personnel expenses dropped by €726 million, or about $842 million. The average number of employees dropped year over year in every functional area: production (-3,559), marketing and distribution (-1,518), research and development (-800) and general administration (-553).
EveryONE Medicines has decided to close up shop. An anonymous source told Endpoints News that the biotech found the FDA’s recent bespoke framework for personalized medicines insufficient and challenging to work with to commercialize treatments for exceedingly small patient populations, the outlet reported March 3.
The regulator last week released draft guidance designed to help drugmakers that are advancing personalized genetic medicines, potentially clearing an easier path to market. Under these new recommendations, the FDA has suggested that companies should clearly elucidate the underlying biologic cause of a disease and develop their drug candidate to target this pathway.
Theravance Biopharma is winding down its R&D operations and laying off half of its staff in an effort to drastically stanch its spending after the disappointing outcome of its Phase 3 CYPRESS study in neurogenic orthostatic hypotension in patients with multiple system atrophy.
The sweeping restructuring will take place over the next two months, the biotech announced in a March 3 release, adding that it expects to absorb around $5 million to $7 million in one-time costs, linked primarily to severance payments. Theravance estimates that its cost-cutting measures will lower operating expenses by 60% relative to 2025 levels, generating around $60 million to $70 million of annualized cash flow starting in the third quarter.
CYPRESS tested Therarvance’s norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor ampreloxetine and found that the drug candidate failed to significantly hypotension in patients. The drug also failed key secondary endpoints including blood pressure, heart rate and norepinephrine levels.
As it explores strategic options, San Diego–based BioAtla is cutting about 70% of its workforce, retaining only those employees essential to its strategic review.
The news, announced March 2, comes less than a year after BioAtla cut 30% of its staff, a move meant to help the business extend its runway into the first half of 2026, according to a March 2025 SEC filing. The biotech, which develops biologic antibody therapeutics to treat solid tumors, was also looking to optimize expenses “to support development of its prioritized programs and set the Company up for long-term success.”
Strategic options the company is exploring include selling its five preclinical-stage and four clinical-stage assets as well as striking licensing transactions or strategic partnerships, according to the announcement.
Merck is trimming its Durham, North Carolina, headcount by 154 employees: 147 staff will be laid off from the pharma’s site on Old Oxford Road, while seven workers will be let go from the Rodolphe Street location, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act posting for the state.
The layoffs follow Merck’s decision to stop using the Old Oxford Road facility to produce its Gardasil and Gardasil 9 vaccines “because of the recent worldwide reduction in demand for the product,” according to the pharma’s WARN letter sent to state authorities, according to reporting from Business North Carolina. Merck opened the $1-billion facility in March 2025.
The pharma last whittled down its workforce in July 2025, announcing at the time that it would lay off around 6,000 employees, or around 8% of its global headcount. Days earlier, Merck revealed that it would lower cash burn by $3 billion through 2027 in an effort to fund the launches of more than 20 products.
After the surprising rejection of its bitopertin for a rare blood disorder, Disc Medicine is implementing a restructuring initiative that will leave around 20% of its employees jobless, the biotech revealed in a Feb. 26 SEC document. This change, according to the securities filing, will help “better align the Company’s workforce with its near-term strategic priorities.”
Operations primarily involved in commercial and supportive functions will be hit hard, Disc said, adding that it will complete the layoffs in the second quarter. Disc will absorb around $2 million in one-time costs in accordance with the restructuring initiative.
Disc had proposed the use of bitopertin to treat erythropoietic protoporphyria, a rare disorder that manifests as extreme and painful sensitivity to sunlight. Analysts found the denial to be unexpected, given that bitopertin in October 2025 received the Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher, a ticket granted to companies that align with certain national priorities and which can shorten the review period from the typical 10-12 months to 1-2 months.
In December last year, however, reports circulated that the FDA’s biologics chief Vinay Prasad was skeptical of bitopertin.
