After raising heaps of capital during the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic to help biopharmas shift to virtual clinical studies, a few decentralized clinical trials providers have conducted layoffs in recent months as they adjust business priorities, Endpoints News has learned.
That includes privately held Medable, which disclosed a $304 million Series D last October, and Science 37, which also began trading last October after a SPAC merger.
The industry has become all too familiar with layoffs in recent quarters, with a bear market that has upended many workforces and caused pipeline pruning, but signs of a turnaround have emerged in recent weeks.
Medable and Science 37 both conducted layoffs earlier this summer, with the latter’s move impacting “just under 25” people, according to a former Science 37 employee who told Endpoints they resigned shortly after the layoffs to “reclaim a more healthy work-life balance.” Both companies declined to disclose the exact number of employees affected. In an email to Endpoints, Medable CEO Michelle Longmire said the amount was under 10%.
Both companies told Endpoints they are still hiring, with a Science 37 spokesperson noting the company has “about 40 open positions we are actively trying to fill.”
“To seize the massive market opportunity, Medable restructured the company to enable another year of triple-digit, top-line growth,” Longmire said in a statement.
In a follow-up email, the CEO said the company “placed numerous bets” en route to finding a market fit for its product, and has now prioritized enterprise customers.
David Coman“As the Tufts research demonstrates, we now know where technology really has an impact in clinical drug development and the impact is real – 13x net present value in a phase III study,” Longmire said in an email. “With that in mind, we restructured to align our company with our SaaS business model – one that scales to meet the demand we are seeing as DCT has gone from a study by study try before you buy to an enterprise scale priority for life sciences.”
On Science 37’s Q1 earnings call back in May, CEO David Coman said the company was “aggressively taking expenses out of the business” as it aims to become “cash flow neutral” by the end of 2024, hoping it won’t need to raise more money by then.
“We are constantly evaluating the needs of our business relative to the infrastructure required to support it,” the Science 37 spokesperson said in a statement. “At any given point in time, we may have less demand in one area, and increased demand in another.”
