STAT+: CRISPR pioneer Prime Medicine switches CEO and lays off quarter of its staff
Prime Medicine, known for its goal of treating hundreds of diseases with CRISPR, says it's narrowing its focus to two. It also announced big layoffs and a new CEO.
Prime Medicine, a biotech whose wild ambitions for a powerful gene editing technology sank as the biotech market slumped, announced Monday it is replacing its CEO, laying off 25% of its staff, and scrapping its lead program.
The reorganization comes amid a prolonged winter for the gene editing field that has seen nearly every major company lay off staff or cut programs, sometimes despite promising data. A few companies have shut down altogether or merged out of existence.
Prime was initially formed in 2019, around a CRISPR-based technology from Broad Institute biochemist David Liu for making virtually any type of small edit to the genome: single-letter changes, small insertions, and small deletions.
