Cidara reacquired the rights to the therapy from J&J for $85m in April. Image credit: gguy / Shutterstock.

Cidara Therapeutics is axing nearly a third of its workforce to find funds to continue advancing clinical development of its reacquired flu candidate.

The US-based biotech plans to lay off approximately 30% of its workforce, amounting to 20 positions, as per the company’s recent SEC filing. The reduction is expected to cost the company $1.2m in severance and benefit payments and will conclude by 1 November 2024.

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Cidara plans to focus its resources on advancing its influenza prevention therapy, CD388. The company also announced it plans to start a Phase IIb trial of CD388 for the prevention of influenza A and B in Q3 this year during the Northern Hemisphere’s flu season.

After originally selling the rights to the drug to Johnson & Johnson (J&J) in 2021, the company reacquired the rights to the therapy for $85m in April after the pharma giant announced plans to deprioritise the development of the drug. Despite Cidara now being responsible for all development and marketing costs for CD388, J&J is eligible to receive additional milestone-based payments.

CD388 received fast track designation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in June 2023. The drug has been evaluated in two Phase I studies (NCT05285137 and NCT05619536) and one Phase IIa (NCT05523089) trial.

In the Phase IIa data, despite a numerical decrease in influenza virus replication after a single dose of CD388, the reduction was not statistically significant. The CD388 treatment group also reported reduced influenza incidence rates compared to the placebo arm but again this was not statistically significant.

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Cidara also has cancer therapeutics as part of its pipeline, its most advanced candidate in the indication is CBO421. In July 2024, the company received investigational new drug application (IND) clearance to start a Phase I trial for evaluating CBO421 in solid tumours. However, Cidara’s SEC filing noted that it “does not currently plan to initiate clinical trials for any other product candidate”.

The company has started multiple strategic measures to raise capital this year, including the sale of its rezafungin programme to Mundipharma and a $240m private investment in a public equity financing deal. Both efforts were expected to fund the Phase IIb trial of CD388.

Following the recent round of lay-offs, Cidara joins a list of pharmaceutical companies, including Atreca, Candel Therapeutics, Kinnate Bio, and NexImmune, that have fired workers to funnel more money into their clinical development pipelines.