In a wildly chaotic quarter, one thing has remained stable—industry layoffs.
Biopharmas recorded 62 layoff rounds, just a smidge lower than the 64 reported both in the first and second quarter each, according to Fierce Biotech’s Layoff Tracker.
However, the sum of 2025’s three quarters (190 layoff rounds) is nearly the same as 2024’s total of 192 rounds reported. That puts this year on the fast-track trajectory to blow last year’s numbers out of the water.
If the layoff rate remains constant, one could reasonably expect 252 workforce reductions by the end of the year—a 27% percentage point increase from last year.
But enough about hypotheticals. Here's a look at the most recent data.
One of the most apparent trends this time around is the massive numbers of employees being laid off from Big Pharmas.
In September, Ozempic-maker Novo Nordisk announced that it would be laying off 9,000 employees, with more than half of those cuts occurring in the pharma’s home country of Denmark. The changes come under new CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar and are designed to save about $1.3 billion annually by the end of 2026.
About two weeks earlier, Merck & Co. rolled out a sweeping cost-cutting initiative designed to save $3 billion annually by the end of 2027. Six thousand employees—or 8% of the company’s workforce—will lose their jobs.
And then there’s Sarepta Therapeutics. While the gene therapy seller isn’t considered a Big Pharma, the biopharma’s restructuring and subsequent events held the attention of the entire industry.
In mid-July, the biopharma announced a 500-person workforce reduction, or 36% of its staff. The cuts were just one part of a strategic restructuring aiming to save $400 million annually. The reconfiguring also included a pipeline pivot to prioritize siRNA programs and an FDA-requested black box warning added to its Duchenne muscular dystrophy gene therapy Elevidys’ label.
What followed was—in short—a series of safety concerns around Elevidys and growing scrutiny over the company’s transparency after patient deaths. (If you’re not caught up on the situation, I recommend checking out our podcast detangling the key events.)
The ordeal raised a lot of questions about gene therapy, a field that continues to battle numerous obstacles such as investor divestment, accessibility issues and, of course, safety concerns.
In late September, Biogen officially ended all gene therapy work using adeno-associated virus capsids, a decision that prompted a small number of layoffs, the company told Fierce. The Big Biotech firm said it was instead shifting resources to modalities that have the highest likelihood of achieving better treatment outcomes.
Earlier on, Arena BioWorks laid off 30% of its workers—or 22 people—as part of a shift away from cell and gene therapy work. The layoffs took place about 19 months after the biotech launched with a hefty $500 million in hand.
Cell therapy has also suffered quite heavily in the last year or so. In September, one of 2024’s top biotech fundraisers said it was halving its workforce. The cell therapy biotech had just raised a $325 million series C the year prior.
Meanwhile, preclinical CAR-T company Appia Bio was forced to close shop after running out of funds.
Other layoffs in the cell and gene landscape this last quarter occurred at 4D Molecular Therapeutics, Innate Pharma, Generation Bio, Sail Biomedicines, Adicet Bio and Rocket Pharmaceuticals.
This most recent quarter, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced its plan to end mRNA vaccine work funded by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. The move is part of a continuous and scientifically unjustified campaign against several approved and novel vaccine sciences by federal health administrators.
That sentiment has created a lot of uncertainty in the spot, with companies like mRNA giant Moderna laying off employees this summer while biotech NextRNA Therapeutics wound down.
What’s not included in the Fierce Biotech Layoff Tracker but is deeply intertwined with the biomedical research and science community is the mass layoffs and resignations occurring in the federal government.
Since this week’s government shutdown started, 32,460 employees across the HHS will be furloughed during the shutdown. Right before the shutdown, more than 150,000 federal workers across all departments resigned as part of Trump’s buyout program that kept employees receiving paychecks through September.
Excluding the past week, the HHS has already lost roughly 20,000 employees since Trump took office in January.