Caribou Biosciences, one of the first companies founded to advance CRISPR gene editing in medicine, announced October 6 that it is discontinuing research, laying off staff, and seeking strategic alternatives. The board will consider mergers, acquisitions, or other transactions for the company or its assets, and the “substantial reduction in workforce” will be mostly complete by the end of the year.
The decision ends work on two off-the-shelf CAR-T cancer therapies, including vispa-cel, which was ready for Phase 3 testing with an FDA-agreed trial design. CEO Rachel Haurwitz said the financing environment for allogeneic CAR-T made it “increasingly challenging to secure the capital necessary to responsibly advance these programs.” Leerink Partners analyst Daina Graybosch wrote that investors were unwilling to fund the trial with questions lingering about clinical risk, the company’s HLA-matching strategy, and the strength of vispa-cel’s data.
Caribou began operations in 2011 with co-founders including Jennifer Doudna, the Nobel laureate for CRISPR work, and went public in 2021 in one of the field’s biggest IPOs. Its shares briefly topped $30 in September 2021 and now trade under $1. A disappointing vispa-cel readout in June 2024, a 12 percent workforce cut the next month, and a 2025 retreat from autoimmune work preceded this week’s decision. The arc illustrates the sector’s core problem: off-the-shelf allogeneic therapies promise cheaper, faster cell therapy than personalized CAR-T, but research setbacks and durability questions have dried up the capital needed to prove it.