By Connor Hart

Atara Biotherapeutics said it would lay off half of its workforce in a restructuring that came as the company narrowed its loss and logged higher revenue in the fourth quarter.

The immunotherapy company said Friday that it will retain about 35 employees, whose roles are essential to operations.

The company had 225 employees as of Dec. 31, 2023, according to the latest headcount available in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. However, other workforce reductions have taken place since then, including in January 2024, when the company's workforce was cut by a quarter.

Chief Executive Cokey Nguyen said the restructuring will allow the company to further narrow its focus on Ebvallo, a treatment candidate for Epstein-Barr virus positive post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease, or EBV+PTLD.

The development of Ebvallo was halted earlier this year after the Food and Drug Administration placed the drug on a clinical hold. Nguyen said that the company will continue to work toward a path to release the clinical hold and resubmit an application for the treatment.

At the same time, the company will pause development of its allogeneic CAR-T cell programs and discontinue all CAR-T operations, he said.

For the fourth quarter, Atara posted a net loss of $12.7 million, compared with a loss of $60.5 million a year earlier.

On a per-share basis, the company reported a quarterly loss of $1.19. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected a loss of $2.86 a share.

Revenue jumped to $32.8 million from $4.3 million a year earlier and came in ahead of the $20.6 million that analysts modeled.

Write to Connor Hart at connor.hart@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 07, 2025 16:39 ET (21:39 GMT)

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