Caribou said it would stop work on both of its clinical-stage CAR-T programs and consider strategic options including a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
- RBC Capital downgrades to ‘Sector Perform’ from ‘Outperform’ and cuts price target to $1 from $10.
- Caribou will also reduce its workforce.
- The company had $113.8 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities as of June 30.
Shares of Caribou Biosciences (CRBU) crashed more than 35% in pre-market trading on Wednesday, as Wall Street sharply cut its price target after the biotech firm said it would scale back its cancer-drug development efforts.
If levels hold after the market opens, CRBU shares would hit a new 52-week low and clock their biggest single-day slide ever.
CRBU Set To Reduce Workforce By Q4
After market hours on Tuesday, Caribou said it would stop work on both of its clinical-stage CAR-T programs while considering strategic options including a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
Caribou will also substantially reduce its workforce, which it expects to mostly complete during the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2026.
The firm will discontinue the development of Vispa-Cel and CB-011. Vispa-Cel was being developed for relapsed or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It targets a protein found on certain B-cell cancers. Caribou and the FDA had agreed on the design of a potential Phase 3 study.
CB-011 targets a protein commonly found on multiple myeloma cells, and was being studied in a Phase 1 trial. Both programs had received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT), Fast Track, and Orphan Drug designations, intended to speed development of treatments for serious diseases.
“Unfortunately, despite the progress we’ve made, the current financing environment for allogeneic CAR-T cell therapies has made it increasingly challenging to secure the capital necessary to responsibly advance these programs. As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to evaluate strategic alternatives and plan to discontinue further development of our allogeneic CAR-T cell therapy programs,” said Rachel Haurwitz, president and CEO of Caribou.
Wall Street Slashes Price Target To $1
RBC Capital downgraded Caribou Biosciences to ‘Sector Perform’ from ‘Outperform’ and reduced the price target to $1 from $10, according to The Fly. Meanwhile, Leerink downgraded Caribou to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Outperform’ and cut the price target to $1 from $4, citing reduced visibility into Caribou’s outlook as an ongoing entity after the discontinuation of the programs.
The company had $113.8 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities as of June 30, down from $142.8 million at the end of 2025.
Retail Expects CRBU To Slump Further
Despite the pre-market slump, retail sentiment for CRBU on Stocktwits turned ‘bullish’ from ‘neutral’ a day earlier, amid a 2,033% surge in message volumes.
One user expects the stock to keep declining until the company finds a buyer for its two pipeline assets.
View this Stocktwits post
The stock is down more than 53% so far this year.
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