OvaScience endocrine/metabolic news

OvaScience will reduce headcount by about 30% and slow commercial expansion of its Augment fertility treatment to extend its cash runway into 1Q19. In connection with the restructuring, President and CEO Harald Stock and COO Paul Chapman will step down. Early last year, OvaScience hired Stock and Chapman to lead a global commercial expansion of Augment, initially targeting Canada and Japan as the primary commercial markets. Augment became commercially available at select in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics in Canada in 2015 and Japan in August 2016. The company will continue to make Augment available at those clinics but now plans to “limit the growth of its commercial infrastructure in those countries,” saying the near-term financial return from initial Augment commercialization “has not been sufficient” to continue to invest at the levels “necessary for a large commercial expansion.” This half, the company plans to meet with FDA “as part of its ongoing exploration of potential entry [of Augment] into the U.S. market." Augment is a process that involves isolating mitochondria from a woman’s egg precursor cells and injecting them into her egg along with a sperm cell during IVF. ...