Roughly one year into launch, Lenz Therapeutics, the maker of Vizz eye drops for aging-related nearsightedness, is making major cuts to its headcount.
The executive team announced a “strategic reorganization” on Wednesday when it reported its third-quarter earnings. A securities filing the same day clarified that the biotech will trim 75% of its workforce, leaving just a 40-person team behind.
The cuts come as the company reported a $0.99 per share loss for Q3, exceeding estimates of a $0.97 loss. The company’s stock has declined by more than 80% since the start of the year.
“Going forward, consumer marketing will be the emphasis of our U.S. commercial strategy, with a much smaller and more focused sales and medical team maintaining important KOL, ECP and trade relationships,” CEO Eef Schimmelpennink said on the company's earnings call.
Schimmelpennink, too, is headed for the door amid Lenz’s financial troubles. The CEO of six years, who started with Lenz after its series A, is transitioning out of the role in early December. Lenz CFO Dan Chevallard will step up as interim president and CEO.
All told, Schimmelpennink said the reorganization is expected to bring 2027 operating expenses down by 50% to between $70 million and $75 million, and 70% of those funds will go toward Lenz’s consumer-driven sales and marketing strategy.
In July 2026, Lenz launched a direct-to-consumer platform that allows patients to get Vizz through an integrated telehealth evaluation and ePharmacy fulfillment. In Q3, Vizz sales clocked in at $2.6 million and as the drug logged more than 38,000 paid prescriptions, a 50% and 51% increase over the second quarter, respectively. Lenz said more than half of the growth in prescriptions from the second to third quarter came from the telehealth channel.
“We are focusing our commercial organization and investment on initiatives we believe will most effectively increase consumer awareness, access and adoption,” Schimmelpennink said in a statement.
Lenz isn’t the only drugmaker to struggle with establishing a presbyopia treatment. AbbVie’s Vuity, approved in 2021, was once hailed a potential blockbuster and marketed as a replacement for reading glasses before it sputtered out because of low uptake. At the time of its approval, analysts said that Vizz had a better chance of a successful rollout. Only time will tell if Lenz’s DTC strategy is enough to right the ship
Lenz expects the reorganization to be finished before the new year and to incur $5 million in one-time restructuring charges.