Sana Biotechnology confirms program timelines and portfolio priories

Sana Biotechnology announced a portfolio prioritization designed to optimize the development of programs at or nearing clinical development, continue investments in our core research platforms and innovation, and maintain a strong balance sheet with an expected cash runway into 2025. The resulting changes include focusing its second HIP-modified allogeneic CAR T program on targeting CD22 for CD19 CAR T failures, halting further internal investment in its SC187 program and stage-gating certain platform investments based upon clinical progress in humans. The prioritization and restructuring reduced the company’s headcount by approximately 15%, which gives the company the expected runway to invest in its key clinical programs over the next several years. Timelines for the company’s lead programs, including time to IND and clinical data, are not expected to be impacted."We are making significant progress with our platforms to address two of the fundamental opportunities to enable greater utilization of cell engineering to treat serious diseases – overcoming immune rejection of allogeneic cells and in vivo delivery of gene modification reagents in a cell-specific manner. We look forward to generating human proof of concept starting next year and are positioning the company to invest fully based upon the clinical data," said Steve Harr, Sana‘s President and CEO. "Losing talented and valued colleagues is painful, and we thank them for their contributions to Sana’s mission. Prioritization is important, and we will continue to make decisions based upon internal data, external evolution of the field, and the company’s needed capabilities to deliver on the promise of our pipeline with important medicines for patients."