Spark Therapeutics files notice to lay off 300 employees this year

Cell and gene therapy standout Spark Therapeutics is undergoing its second shakeup in a month, with plans to lay off about half of its workforce.

Several hundred people will be affected. A WARN notice, which companies file to provide advance notice of layoffs, reported 298 eliminated positions in the Philadelphia region. A Spark Therapeutics spokesperson told the Philadelphia Business Journal on Thursday it would be laying off 337 of its almost 650 employees.

These changes are expected to occur in three waves: in May, July and at the end of 2025. The remaining 310 employees will be incorporated into parent company Roche, a multinational pharmaceutical company. 

Spark first announced on January 30 the decision to integrate more of its work into Roche, spokesperson Denise Bradley told Technical.ly. The impacted employees will be eligible for severance, outplacement services and will be able to apply for other roles within Roche.

Spark’s plans for its University City-based Gene Therapy Innovation Center in Philadelphia have not changed, Bradley said. 

Last month, Roche classified the former startup as a financial loss following the end of its trial for a hemophilia A gene therapy treatment, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The company is still working on a new Hemophilia A gene product, Spark previously told Technical.ly. 

The layoff announcement comes less than a year after Spark’s previous workforce reduction, when it let less than 50 of its employees go in July 2024. At the end of last year, the company welcomed Roche veteran Sylke Poehling as its new CEO, replacing Ron Phillip, who had been in the role since 2022. 

Spark’s year of downsizing

Recent struggles at Spark, which was founded by Jeffrey Marrazzo in 2013 and was considered a big Philadelphia success story, indicate the need for the gene therapy sector to make manufacturing more cost effective, Rebecca Grant, senior director of life sciences and innovation for the city’s Department of Commerce, previously told Technical.ly. But the company itself heavily contributed to the development of the industry as a whole. 

“They really created a lot of recognition for gene therapy and innovation,” Grant said. “Now more people understand what gene therapy means and how it can literally cure disease.” 

In 2021, the company announced plans for a 500,000-square-foot Gene Therapy Innovation Center in University City. At the time, Spark said the new site would house over 500 jobs. The Innovation Center is still expected to be completed next year, Spark spokesperson Bradley previously told Technical.ly. 

The Penn spinout is known for developing the first FDA-approved gene therapy, Luxturna. Pharma giant Roche acquired Spark in 2019 for $4.8 billion, the largest VC-backed exit in Philadelphia at the time. 

“Gene therapy is not a huge sector, and Spark was a trailblazer,” Dean Miller, president of the Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies, previously said. “[It’s] never easy when your trailblazer starts to disappear a little further.”