Peanut allergy drug developer Aimmune plans to cut 75 jobs on the Peninsula as parent company Nestlé looks to sell off its lead drug.
The company has about 450 employees in all, including the headquarters in Brisbane as well as sites in North Carolina, London and Germany. Aimmune's main asset, the $11,000-a-year peanut allergy drug Palforzia, was the centerpiece of the company's $2.6 billion buyout in 2020 by global food giant Nestlé SA. The drug was groundbreaking because the capsule's precise portions of peanut powder standardized the ramping up of allergy treatment, rather than relying on doctors to carefully measure doses for individual patients.
That turned what Nestlé hoped would be a blockbuster treatment with sales of more than $1 billion into one that looks like a"very potent and very successful niche therapy" with lower sales.