According to the Boston-based biopharmaceutical company, the total charges for the workforce reduction will be approximately $130,000. This action follows the recent interim clinical results in which the Point Therapeutics’ Independent Monitoring Committee recommended stopping the company’s two phase III talabostat studies as a potential treatment for patients in advanced non-small cell lung cancer.
As a result of the company informing the FDA of the interim results, the FDA has put the talabostat clinical program on hold. Point said that it continues to assess its options given this recent data and will report on next steps once they have been decided.
The company is conducting several phase II trials with talabostat, including as a single-agent in metastatic melanoma, in combination with cisplatin in metastatic melanoma, in combination with rituximab in advanced chronic lymphocytic leukemia and in combination with gemcitabine in Stage IV pancreatic cancer.