Overall, biopharma layoffs rose ever so slightly in 2024 compared to the year before, though the number of layoff rounds across Big Pharma skyrocketed by 281%.
In 2024, Fierce Biotech reported 192 industry layoff rounds, which is 3% higher than in 2023, when 187 rounds were tallied. Rounds are reported as they are disclosed and are not combined per company for those implementing more than one workforce reduction in a year.
The most recent figure is a 63% jump from the 118 rounds counted in 2022.
While it's difficult to fully understand the human impact of layoffs, at least 15,134 people lost their jobs from the 86 companies reporting numbers last year, according to data from the Fierce Biotech Layoff Tracker. The remaining companies either reported layoffs as a percentage of the total workforce or didn’t share how many staff members would be laid off.
Of the 99 times that companies did provide a percentage of staff receiving pink slips, the average reduction size was 38%.
One stark difference between years is the growing presence of Big Pharma firms reporting layoffs. While the overall number of industry layoff rounds remained stable, the number of times large pharma companies handed out pink slips rose 281%.
In 2023, 11 layoff waves were reported at large pharmas, compared to 42 rounds in 2024, according to Fierce Biotech’s layoff trackers. Three Big Pharma shops—Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Bristol Myers Squibb—recorded multiple workforce reductions per year for both 2023 and 2024.
Of the 34 times large corporations disclosed the number of employees that would be laid off, 9,318 staffers were impacted.
Notably absent from the 2024 tracker are Ozempic- and Wegovy-seller Novo Nordisk, and Zepbound- and Mounjaro-maker Eli Lilly after the obesity market exploded in 2023.
The numbers are discouraging. After all, biopharma layoffs are still happening at a rate that justifies a tracker. But what do workforce reduction rates, and the possible plateau, signify about the market?
The cuts are likely a lagging indicator of market health, Roivant CEO Matt Gline told Fierce Biotech.
“Look at 2020 and 2021—capital was incredibly abundant, so people stocked their coffers,” Gline explained, referring to the money that flooded biopharma in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. “And when the market got rough in '23, the companies that had raised in '21 and maybe early '22 didn't need money immediately.”
“Leadership teams don't like doing big rounds of layoffs proactively,” Gline said. “So, even if you see things getting tough or you're worried about accessing the markets, you kind of put it off until the last minute.”
Then, after six months in a protracted downturn, some biotechs start to run low on cash, according to Gline.
“You catch companies that got fat in the good times and then hoped to be able to wait out the market and couldn't,” he explained.
Most companies that planned on waiting it out have likely had to pivot amid the biotech bear market that has stretched for three years now.
“2022 was a pretty rough biotech market and 2023 was, up until the very end, a very rough biotech market,” Gline said. “'24 has been more mixed, right? Not spectacular, but not terrible.”
When examined by month, the number of layoff rounds were similarly varied, with January seeing the highest number of cuts reported at 24 rounds. The second peak was reported in August, when 21 layoff announcements were made.
In contrast, June had the fewest workforce reductions reported, with seven rounds recorded.
That being said, not all layoff rounds are created equal—the ratio of and reasonings behind layoffs matter.
At the end of 2022, Roivant laid off 12% of staffers as part of a broader cash-saving strategy. The downsizing was designed to help further Roivant’s cash runway into the second half of 2025, CEO Gline said at the time. Since then, the company hasn’t had to implement further staff cuts tied to money-saving measures, with $5.4 billion in its coffers as of Sept. 30, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Layoffs can be considered somewhat typical business measures—particularly during challenging market conditions—but they can also signify broader issues as well.
“The approximate cause of death for almost all biotech companies is running out of money, and so the thing that biotech companies do when times are tough financially is try and save money,” Gline said. “It's clearly the case that if there's a very high volume of layoffs, it probably means that companies are having a hard time accessing capital.”
Take, for example, AlloVir’s 95% workforce reduction in January 2024 after suffering from a triple phase 3 failure. After shedding almost all its staff, the struggling immunotherapy biotech finally found solace via merger with eye disease-focused Kalaris Therapeutics in November.
Or Tome Biosciences, the gene editor that emerged in late 2023 with $213 million, and laid off all 131 employees this November.
“Despite our clear scientific progress, investor sentiment has shifted dramatically across the gene editing space, particularly for preclinical companies,” a Tome spokesperson told Fierce Biotech in an Aug. 22 emailed statement. At the time, the company said it was exploring multiple strategic options. The biotech shuttered by the end of the year.
Those companies can end up in Fierce Biotech’s graveyard, a yearly report in which we remember the companies that shut down over the year. From November of 2023 to October 2024, at least 17 biotechs closed their doors, while five companies teetered close to the edge of dissolution.
Volatility has become the industry’s norm, with pharma and life sciences companies that are able to identify core strengths and regularly reassess their portfolios expected to be those best positioned for long-term success, according to analyst PwC.
While layoffs can be incredibly difficult, they are inherently tied to biotech, a business built on risk.
“If biotech companies were unwilling to fail, a lot of important things wouldn't happen,” Gline concluded. “Studies wouldn't get run, patients wouldn't get treated, medicines wouldn't be developed.”