InterMune cuts costs: workforce slashed 50%

California, USA-based biotechnology firm InterMune will cut by half its workforce in a bid to save $40.0 million to $50.0 million over a year. The firm plans to make all of the scheduled job cuts, a total of 116 full-time and contract positions across all departments, by the end of this year.

Company chief executive Dan Welch said that the firm had moved "quickly and aggressively" to reduce operating expenses in light of the termination of the INSPIRE trial of Actimunne [interferon gamma 1b] in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis."

This month, InterMune stopped the Phase III study after Actimmune failed to meet pre-defined efficacy criteria in the treatment of IPF patients (Marketletter March 12). An independent data monitoring committee assessing the program concluded that there was no difference between the overall mortality rate in drug-treated and placebo groups.