Alexza Pharmaceuticals is sending 52 of its employees packing. The company also announced that they’re scrapping the Endo deal to develop inhaled Staccato fentanyl. Alexza now plans to focus exclusively on AZ-004 – Staccato loxapine – for agitation.

This is a program we never understood. Where’s the need and why an inhaled version? Yeah patients need a rapid acting drug in the ER/psych ER, but inhaled? Has anyone ever tried to do anything with a highly agitated schizophrenic/bipolar patient?

Anyway, president and CEO Thomas King mumbled this:

“The most difficult aspect of these hard decisions is the fact that Alexza has accomplished much in the past five years as a result of an incredible amount of hard work and dedication by many employees. We are extremely grateful to all of our employees for their significant contributions and efforts to create new products with a new technology, which we believe have the potential to change the practice of medicine…Alexza has made substantial progress with its Staccato technology and product candidates over the past several years, but find our industry faced with an intensely difficult funding environment, which is critical to the growth of life science companies. The difficult choices we are making reflect that reality, even in the face of our own internal successes.”

Who out there is getting tired of all the bs speeches? It’s almost comical.

We’re not done either. CMC Icos Biologics, a contract manufacturer of biotech drugs in Bothell, WA, has axed 11 employees. Maybe not much compared to Astra or Pfizer, but still a sign o the times.

Here’s the scoop from Xconomy.

Image from tempe.gov

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