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Bluebird Bio is laying off 25 percent of its workers to cut costs

The Somerville company has not yet seen the financial payoff from its scientific breakthroughs — and it is continuing to lose money.

‘Skin in the game’: Harvard geneticist George Church launches new stem cell company using his own skin cells
GC Therapeutics unveiled on Thursday its work to create stem cell-based medicines more efficiently to treat gastrointestinal, immunological, and neurological diseases.

Charles River Labs to cut over 600 jobs
The Wilmington-based biotech research firm is seeing drug industry clients pull back on spending.

Two local biotechs go public, raising $540 million total
Boston-based Bicara Therapeutics and Waltham-based Zenas BioPharma are the third and fourth Massachusetts-based biotech companies to hold IPOs this year.

Moderna slashes research budget as vaccine sales disappoint, but no layoffs planned
Moderna aims to reduce its research and development budget by about 20 percent over the next three years as the biotech tries to find a path to profitability following disappointing vaccine sales.

US House passes bill to blacklist some China biotech firms
At stake, the bill’s backers argued, is whether a rival will dominate another field the US pioneered, amid fears China could engineer bioweapons or otherwise capitalize on biological data vacuumed up from the rest of the world.

Moderna, Eli Lilly, and other drug firms in Greater Boston have become galleries for disadvantaged artists
Many of the industry’s glitzy new buildings are showcasing impressive artwork by artists dealing with homelessness or living with disabilities — including some of the very conditions that the drug firms treat.

Bayer signs $547 million pact with Boston-based NextRNA in oncology push
The companies will work together on developing two small-molecule programs using NextRNA’s technology, which targets “long non-coding RNAs” that are associated with diseases including cancer.

More Life Sciences Headlines

Massachusetts’ biotech sector sees slower job growth in past year, report finds

Despite economic headwinds and widely reported layoffs, the sector still added 2,943 jobs, a new report said.

RI BUSINESS

R.I. Life Science Hub still in negotiations to develop lab incubator space: ‘In the business world... things moved a lot faster’

The publicly-funded incubator space is expected to cost between $10 million and $13 million.

Tome Biosciences files notice to lay off virtually entire staff

The layoffs mark a rapid fall for Tome, a startup that was founded out of MIT in 2021 and announced its first fundraising just last December.

UK’s cost-effectiveness agency gives negative review of Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi

The UK’s cost-effectiveness watchdog on Thursday said that the limited benefits of the treatment from Eisai and Cambridge-based Biogen do not justify its costs.

How a small-town bank from Arkansas became a big player in building Boston’s biotech scene

Bank OZK has issued more construction loans than anyone in recent years, including $215 million for next phase of Fan Pier.

Medicare negotiated discounts on 10 popular drugs. What could that mean for you?

The agreement with drugmakers will lower the list price of 10 major prescription drugs, but questions remain about how much of the savings will be passed on to patients.

By one key measure, Boston’s lab market is in as rough shape as the pandemic-battered office market

Amid a wave of new construction and an industry slowdown, the vacancy rate for life sciences buildings has exploded in recent years.

Eli Lilly opens $700 million research center on Fort Point spot where GE headquarters was once planned

The 346,000-square-foot building will accommodate Lilly’s expanding workforce in Massachusetts and serve as the company’s hub for gene-based treatments.