IGM Biosciences has shut down a significant number of its labs and offices. The biotech firm based in California has also trimmed its workforce by 80 per cent. Why? Because Sanofi has cut ties with IGM. Sanofi’s partnership with IGM will formally end in a month’s time. The two companies have parted ways in their best interests, say reports.
With such a powerful partner gone, IGM has resorted to job cuts to cut costs and save cash. The closure of its labs and offices is also part of this effort.
It is looking at ways to reorganise and attain stability.
The annual report of the biotech firm reveals that it had about 150 full-time employees at the end of 2024. The headcount was reduced by 100. That means, about 73 per cent of the team was let go in January of 2025. Therefore, only about 37 full-time employees remained.
With the latest job cuts, the firm will be left with only about seven employees.
The two companies entered into a partnership in 2022 with the pharmaceutical firm providing millions of dollars for the co-development of six IGM antibody agonists for cancer and immunology targets. Sanofi had also assured that it would provide funds up to $940 million for each target, and about $1.06 billion for the immunology/inflammation programme. In total, the value of the contract was way more than $6 billion.
However, two years later, in April 2024, the agreement was altered limiting the number of targets. While no changes were made to the original terms of payment that were agreed upon in 2022, IGM got back the global rights to all cancer-related tech that it had worked on with Sanofi.
