With sales of its lone approved product stagnating, Karyopharm Therapeutics has revealed plans to cut its workforce by 20%.
The reduction includes full-time employees and contractors, the 15-year-old Massachusetts company said. The cuts extend Karyopharm’s cash runway into late 2025.
As of February 10, the company employed 385 people, according to an SEC filing (PDF). That means the cuts could affect around 80 staffers.
Karyopharm disclosed the plans in its second-quarter financial results Wednesday.
“These steps further strengthen our financial position to invest in our three ongoing phase 3 studies, with each representing a large addressable market with unmet patient needs,” Karyopharm chief financial officer Mike Mason said on a conference call.
With the news, Karyopharm’s shares had dropped by 8% by mid-morning on Wednesday.
After Karyopharm’s blood cancer drug Xpovio (selinexor) generated sales of $120.4 million in 2022 in its third full year on the market, the company expected the momentum to continue. It previously projected sales of $125 million to $140 million this year.
Now, that estimate has been sliced to a window of $110 million to $125 million.
When it was approved in 2019 for multiple myeloma, after a rocky trip through development because of safety concerns, Xpovio brought promise as a treatment with a new mechanism of action as a nuclear transport modulator. In 2020, approvals followed for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and for earlier use in multiple myeloma.
In 2022 however, the FDA rejected Karyopharm's bid to expand Xpovio's use as a maintenance therapy in endometrial cancer.
Demand for the treatment is still rising, Karyopharm said, but sales have been adversely affected by higher use of the company’s patient assistance program (PAP), which provides free medicine to people who can’t secure financial assistance.
The surge in PAP use was triggered by the closure of multiple myeloma foundations that provide patient support to Medicare patients, the company said. The impact to revenue was a loss of $3 million in the second quarter, the company’s chief commercial officer Sohanya Cheng said. Karyopharm expects the use of PAP to continue throughout this year.
Karyopharm reported a loss of $32.6 million in the quarter, compared to a loss of $49.1 million for the second quarter of last year. Its revenue of $37.6 million was a decline from $38.7 million in the previous period and $39.7 million in Q2 of 2022.
Meanwhile, Karyopharm is investigating use of Xpovio in several hematologic and solid tumor cancer types. The company also is testing the clinical stage drug eltanexor in relapsed and refractory malignancies including multiple myeloma and colorectal and prostate cancers.