FNCH - Finch to cut workforce by about 37% after Takeda ends bowel disease collaboration

• Finch Therapeutics ( NASDAQ: FNCH ) on Thursday said it planned to cut its workforce by about 37% as part of a strategic review initiated due to Japanese pharmaceutical major Takeda's ( NYSE: TAK ) decision to discontinue its inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) collaboration with the company.
• Shares of the micro-cap clinical-stage company fell 7.9% to $1.99 in premarket trading.
• FNCH last week said it would regain rights to its investigational IBD products FIN-524 and FIN-525 after TAK's decision. FNCH had said it had got more than $44M from the Japanese company over the course of the collaboration.
• "Following the recent discontinuation of our IBD collaboration with Takeda, coupled with the current capital market environment, we are evaluating our strategy across our entire portfolio and have made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce,” said FNCH CEO Mark Smith in a statement .
• FNCH on Thursday also said it had decided to stop the initiation of its phase 1 trial of its drug candidate FIN-211 for the treatment of children with autism spectrum disorder.

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