Halozyme, a San Diego-based biotech, said Monday that its lead drug, for pancreatic cancer, had failed to extend the lives of patients in a clinical trial.
The company is discontinuing all of its studies of the drug, PEGPH20. It will refocus entirely on its already lucrative drug delivery technology, which is being used by drug giants including Roche, Johnson & Johnson, and Bristol-Myers Squibb to turn medicines that must be given intravenously over a period of hours into shots that patients can receive in minutes.
As a result, it will cut 160 jobs, or 55% of its workforce. The company will become profitable by the middle of next year, it said.
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