Empress Therapeutics is halving its team, letting go of 23 employees as the biotech works to get its small molecule science into the clinic.
The Flagship Pioneering biotech has 20 remaining staffers, a spokesperson told Fierce Biotech. Empress declined to comment on what type of roles are affected by the workforce reduction.
The layoffs follow several other recent restructures at Flagship companies, including at Apriori Bio, Omega Therapeutics and Ring Therapeutics. Workforce decisions are not determined as part of a broad strategy by Flagship, but are made at the level of the individual companies, a Flagship spokesperson told Fierce.
Empress unveiled in June 2023 with hopes to rapidly accelerate the development of small molecule medicines. With $50 million in hand, the company said it had generated 15 molecules in less than two years.
At the time, Empress announced plans to file up to four investigational new drug (IND) applications over the span of two years.
As of mid-March 2025, the Massachusetts biotech has not yet publicly announced an IND filing.