(ENZN) Enzon Pharmaceuticals Plans a 50% Workforce Cut

Enzon Pharmaceuticals (ENZN) recently announced that it will reduce its workforce by almost half to better align its resources with much tempered pipeline activities. The research and development pipeline at Enzon was reduced drastically in the last few months. During the second quarter, Enzon announced that it will no longer develop three messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) antagonists utilizing the LNA technology and returned the rights to Santaris. The mRNA antagonists, all of which were in phase I trials, were hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1 a) indicated for tumors and lymphoma, survivin indicated for cancer and pediatric patients with relapse acute lymphoblastic leukemia and androgen receptor (AR) for castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). Earlier, in mid-May 2011, Enzon announced plans to halt the development of its lead pipeline candidate PEG-SN38 for the treatment