After Regulatory Setback, 80 Framingham Biotech Workers Are Losing Their Jobs

FRAMINGHAM, MA — A biotech company with a Framingham factory has more than tripled its planned job cuts in the wake of a regulatory setback.

Replimune Group, which on April 13 said it was laying off 63 employees, notified the state Friday that another 161 are losing their jobs.

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The cuts are scheduled for this week. Most are taking place in the company’s headquarters in Woburn, but 80 employees at the Replimune manufacturing facility on New York Avenue will be out of work.

Replimune (Nasdaq: REPL) has about 480 employees, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing in 2025.

The layoffs come after the federal Food and Drug Administration rejected Replimune’s application to license a new drug treating a form of skin cancer. The turndown was the second for RP1, the biologic medicine developed by the company to help patients with advanced melanoma, the most lethal type of the disease.

Replimune submitted new data after the initial denial last year. But the FDA said in its decision this month that data supporting the drug’s use was “insufficient to conclude substantial evidence of effectiveness.”

Replimune disagreed, saying the agency’s ruling was the result of “inconsistent communication and a fragmented and slow-moving regulatory process,” according to an April 10 news release.

CEO Sushil Patel said, “We are devastated for our committed employees who have worked tirelessly for patients, but at this point we have no choice but to eliminate jobs, including substantially scaling back our U.S.-based manufacturing operations.”