UPDATE 2-PTC Therapeutics announces job cuts to lower annual operating expenses

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Sept 28 (Reuters) - PTC Therapeutics said on Thursday it plans to cut 25% of its workforce, as the drugmaker aims to reduce its yearly operating expenses.

The workforce reduction would primarily include employees working on early-stage research programs and those at its gene therapy manufacturing facility located in Hopewell, New Jersey.

PTC plans to complete the process by Jan. 15 of next year, it said in a regulatory filing.

The company said the cost-saving measures would result in a 20% reduction in annual operating expenses, sending its shares up about 3% in aftermarket trading.

PTC had 1,410 employees as of Dec. 31, 2022, according to its latest annual filing.

The workforce reduction comes at a time when the company is focusing resources on therapies with high unmet needs and assets that would deliver significant return on investment.

PTC had in May discontinued preclinical and early research programs in gene therapy as part of a "strategic portfolio prioritization".

The company on Thursday also confirmed its plans to submit the re-examination request to the EU regulator's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) for its muscular disorder drug, Translarna.

The committee, earlier this month, did not recommend renewal of the drug's conditional authorization, which was last renewed in 2017 in Europe.

CHMP had said data did not provide substantial evidence of effectiveness of the drug to help the patients walk.

Branded as Translarna, the drug ataluren is used in the treatment of a rare muscle-wasting disease, duchenne muscular dystrophy, with a type of genetic mutation.

PTC's years-long effort to bring the drug to market has also faced setbacks from the U.S. health regulator, which cited similar concerns and earlier declined to approve it.

(Reporting by Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)