Caribou Biosciences Restructures, Pivots Back to Oncology Focus

Caribou Biosciences, a prominent cell and gene therapy company, has announced a significant restructuring and strategic shift, abandoning its recent foray into autoimmune diseases to refocus on oncology programs. This move marks a reversal of the company's late 2024 pivot to immunology and highlights the challenges facing the broader cell therapy sector.

Workforce Reduction and Program Discontinuation

Caribou revealed plans to lay off 32% of its workforce, amounting to 47 employees. This reduction is part of a broader cost-saving initiative that includes discontinuing its lupus program and halting a Phase I trial for CB-012 in relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia.

The company estimates that the workforce reduction will cost between $1.8 and $2 million, with an additional $0.7-$1.5 million allocated for winding down the lupus trials. These changes are expected to be finalized by June 2025.

Strategic Refocus on Oncology Programs

Following this restructuring, Caribou will concentrate its resources on two key allogeneic CAR-T products:

1. CB-010 for B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma
2. CB-011 for multiple myeloma

The company has delayed planned study readouts for these therapies until the second half of 2025, aiming to present more robust datasets. For CB-010, Caribou plans to report results with the majority of study participants having completed at least six months of follow-up. The CB-011 trial will present initial data on at least 25 multiple myeloma patients with a minimum of three months of follow-up.

Financial Outlook and Market Response

Caribou reported approximately $213 million in cash as of the end of March 2025. The restructuring is expected to extend the company's financial runway through the second half of 2027, a significant improvement from its previous outlook.

Despite these efforts, Caribou's stock price remains under pressure, trading at less than $1 per share—a stark contrast to its $16 debut when the company went public in July 2021. This decline reflects broader challenges in the cell therapy sector, particularly for companies developing "off-the-shelf" therapies.

Rachel Haurwitz, Caribou's president and CEO, acknowledged the difficult market environment, stating, "To ensure Caribou is strongly positioned to emerge from these challenging times and deliver these potentially value-generating datasets, we have made the difficult decision to strategically prioritize our resources on CB-010 and CB-011 for oncology indications."