After two and a half years at sea, Flagship Pioneering-backed cell signaling company Sonata Therapeutics is whittling down its crew by about 20 employees, a company spokesperson confirmed to Fierce Biotech in a Nov. 21 email.
Volker Herrmann, M.D., has also stepped away from the helm, with Sonata Chairman David Khougazian taking the wheel as acting CEO.
“Sonata has made the decision to streamline its organization around its most immediate priorities,” the spokesperson said. “Sonata continues to operate.”
The biotech declined to comment further when asked whether certain programs were being deprioritized.
Flagship founded Sonata in May 2022 by combining two of its existing companies: Inzen Therapeutics and Cygnal Therapeutics. That origin meant Sonata left the gate with six preclinical oncology programs plus exploratory efforts in fibrosis and autoimmune diseases. All of Sonata's programs are still in preclinical development, according to the company's website.
Herrmann had transitioned to lead Sonata at its inception after previously serving as the CEO of Inzen.
Sonata focuses on what it calls "network medicines," a new class of therapeutics designed to reprogram signaling in diseased cells. The company entered a collaboration with the Champalimaud Foundation in March to develop Sonata’s preclinical pancreatic and colorectal cancer candidate SNT-3012.
Flagship recently appointed two industry veterans to lead its biotechs Apriori Bio and Valo Health and yesterday added obesity and lung cancer targets to its billion-dollar collaboration with Pfizer.