Eleven Biotherapeutics will eliminate 70% of the company’s workforce—14 positions—in the company’s latest retrenchment move following two clinical trial failures for its lead product candidate stretching back to last year.

The jobs were cut “in order to preserve the company’s resources as it determines future strategic plans,” Eleven said yesterday in a regulatory filing.

Eleven said it expected the layoffs to be substantially complete in the third quarter.

The workforce reduction is the latest of several restructuring moves by Eleven following two failures of its lead product candidate isunakinra (EBI-005) in clinical trials.

In May 2015, the company said isunakinra did not achieve its co-primary endpoints in the Phase III OASIS study assessing the candidate in moderate to severe dry eye disease—namely the total corneal fluorescein staining score and the patient-reported measurement related to ocular pain and discomfort based on the ocular surface disease index (OSDI), as measured from baseline to week 12 and compared with a control group.

That failure touched off a nearly 75% slide in the company’s share price last year, finishing at $3.01. The company’ share price has since fallen to $2.33 at the close of trading yesterday, though shares inched up to $2.35 in after-hours trading as of 8:58 a.m. ET today.

Earlier this year, isunakinra failed a Phase III study assessing the candidate in patients with severe allergic conjunctivitis. The company acknowledged on January 16 that there were no statistically significant differences between patients treated with isunakinra and a control group on the primary endpoint of ocular itching or on any secondary endpoints.

Eleven followed up by saying in March it was evaluating strategic alternatives that would include selling the company, launching a strategic partnership, or licensing or selling some of the company's technologies.

Since then, Eleven has licensed its interleukin-6 (IL-6) antagonist antibody technology to Roche for up to $270 million, in a deal announced June 13.

The company projected it will incur $0.9 million in total restructuring costs. Two-thirds of those costs or approximately $0.6 million includes severance, benefits, and related costs—of which half would be paid during the third quarter and the other half in the fourth quarter.

The remaining $0.3 million consists of potential fixed-asset impairments.

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