A year ago, Caribou Biotherapeutics’ CEO was telling Fierce Biotech that the company’s natural killer (NK) cell therapy program was the “tip of the spear” for its solid tumor strategy and didn't hint at any plans to pause this work to conserve cash.
Now, with the biotech eyeing up ways to keep the money flowing into 2026, the CRISPR-focused company has decided that the preclinical CAR-NK research needs to go—along with 12% of Caribou’s workforce.
That 12% equates to 21 employees, the biotech explained in a July 16 Securities and Exchange Commission filing, who will all have left the company by the end of September. Combined with “cost containment measures,” these layoffs are expected to extend Caribou’s runway of $311.8 million in cash and equivalents by at least six months into the second half of 2026.
The CAR-NK program, dubbed CB-020, was an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived allogeneic anti-ROR 1 cell therapy aimed at solid tumors. Caribou already revealed in March that it had paused work on the program as part of a “regular portfolio prioritization process,” although the company claimed at the time that it “continues to develop its CAR-NK cell therapy platform as these therapies may have potential for the treatment of multiple diseases.”
With the NK plans now abandoned altogether, the biotech can focus its resources on its allogeneic CAR-T platform, which Caribou noted yesterday has “multiple milestones expected in 2024 and 2025” across its oncology and autoimmune arms.
These include presenting initial dose escalation data for CB-011 in relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma by the end of this year, as well as launching a phase 1 trial of its lead asset CB-010—which is already being tested in B cell lymphoma—in lupus. A third asset, CB-012, is being evaluated in an early-stage trial in relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia.
With three clinical-stage CAR-T candidates in the works, the NK cell therapy program has sometimes appeared to outsiders as a second-tier priority for Caribou. When talking to Fierce in June 2023 about how to make the company’s cash extend into 2025 and beyond, CEO Rachel Haurwitz, Ph.D., said Caribou had “a lot of different tools in the toolbox” to keep the money flowing.
While the NK program’s position didn’t seem in doubt, Haurwitz did say at the time that Caribou was “absolutely” open to partnering up on this research.