Dive Brief:
- Aegerion Pharmaceuticals announced on Thursday that it will be axing 80 workers, or about 25% of its global workforce, as part of a cost-saving and restructuring effort.
- In a statement, Aegerion CEO Mary Szela said that it would be left with a workforce of about 230 employees around the world after the cuts. The firms also said that it will be focusing on expanding its rare disease drug pipeline, likely through dealmaking.
- Aegerion manufactures drugs like the LDL-cholesterol lowering medication Juxtapid, which is used to treat patients with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH). It received an approval for the leptin deficiency therapy Myalept in 2014.
Dive Insight:
Szela is new to Aegerion, and she's already leaving her mark on the firm in a big way.
"We believe this action better aligns the Company's resources with our current strategy and market opportunity for Juxtapid and our goal of continuing to grow Myalept sales, supports our objective to create a pipeline of therapies to treat patients with rare diseases, and positions us to maximize the value of our assets for our shareholders," she said in a statement announcing the cuts.
The big changes shouldn't come as too much of a surprise considering Aegerion's tumultuous 2015, during which the company axed former CEO Marc Beer for landing it in regulatory hot water over unproven claims about Juxtapid.
Szela told FierceBiotech that a big win would be acquiring a late-stage candidate that conforms with Aegerion's rare disease focus.