Alector, a once-high-flying Bay Area biotech company that researches treatments for degenerative brain disorders like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, is laying off about half of its staff.
The company announced the job cut on Tuesday, in a news release that also bore disappointing study results from latozinemab, its most advanced drug candidate — the medication didn’t meet its goal of slowing the patients’ dementia progression. Alector is cutting off a planned continuation study for the drug and has removed it from its website’s public pipeline. In the news release, Alector wrote that it is laying off 49% of its staff “to align resources” with its new priorities.
Alector revealed more information about the layoff in a WARN filing with state officials, as is generally required in the event of mass job cuts. The document says that 75 workers at the company are losing their jobs, listing 49 layoffs at its South San Francisco headquarters and an additional 26 employees who worked remotely — nine are in California, and the rest are spread across 12 other states…