Caribou Biosciences, the Berkeley company that was among the first to try turning CRISPR gene editing into medicine, is shutting down its drug programs and looking for a buyer after failing to raise the money it needed for a late-stage trial.
The company announced on Oct. 6 that it will stop developing its two experimental "off-the-shelf" CAR-T cancer treatments: vispa-cel, for relapsed or refractory B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and CB-011, for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. Its board approved the move on Oct. 2, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Layoffs this quarter
Caribou said it will make a "substantial" cut to its workforce, with most affected employees leaving in the fourth quarter of 2026. A small group will stay on to help with a possible deal and wind-down work. The company did not say how many people will lose their jobs.
The filing puts the cost of the restructuring at $15 million to $19 million. Severance and related benefits account for $10 million to $11 million, and closing out its clinical trials accounts for the rest. It reported $113.8 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities as of June 30.
Looking for a deal
The board has hired Wedbush Securities to explore options including a merger, acquisition or sale of the company or its assets. Caribou set no timeline and said it does not plan to give updates until a decision is made.
CEO and co-founder Rachel Haurwitz blamed the funding climate, not the science. "Despite the progress we've made, the current financing environment for allogeneic CAR-T cell therapies has made it increasingly challenging to secure the capital necessary to responsibly advance these programs," she said in the company's statement. She called it "an extraordinarily difficult decision."
According to BioPharma Dive, vispa-cel was ready for a Phase 3 trial, and the Food and Drug Administration had agreed to the proposed design. A Leerink Partners analyst wrote that investors were unwilling to fund that trial, citing lingering questions about clinical risk and the strength of the data.
A Berkeley CRISPR pioneer
Caribou began operating in 2011. Its co-founders include UC Berkeley's Jennifer Doudna, who shared the Nobel Prize for her work on CRISPR. The company went public in 2021 in one of the field's biggest IPOs, and its shares briefly topped $30 that September. BioPharma Dive reports they now trade below $1.
Off-the-shelf CAR-T therapies use donor cells instead of a patient's own, which could make them cheaper and faster to deliver. But the approach has struggled across the industry. For the East Bay, Caribou's retreat is another sign of how hard it has become for local biotechs to fund big trials.