GPC to lose 44% of US and German staff

German drugmaker GPC Biotech AG plans to lose 44% of its current active workforce in both Germany and the USA, though it is retaining key personnel needed to achieve the firm's medium- and longer-term goals.

Company chief executive Bernd Seizinger said: "our goal of having approximately two years of operating cash on hand at the end of 2007 has sadly necessitated very significant staff reductions on both sides of the Atlantic... We are implementing a revised strategic plan, which includes focusing our internal efforts on a limited number of development-stage oncology projects, significantly increasing our licensing efforts and actively exploring merger and acquisition opportunities on both sides of the Atlantic."

The company's strategy involves a staff reduction of 103, affecting 60 employees in Munich, Germany, and 43 in Princeton, USA. The remaining work force will be 56 in Munich and 58 in Princeton after the completion of the shutdown of the firm's Waltham, Massachusetts, facility in a few weeks, leaving 114 active employees. The German group has retained a core drug development team headquartered in the USA, with a small group of development people retained in Germany to support ongoing and future work in Europe. The firm says it has also retained a core R&D group in Munich that will support drug development in addition to continuing late-stage discovery efforts focused on kinase inhibitors.