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EQRx, a company that aimed to lower drug prices by introducing inexpensive me-too medicines, said Tuesday that it has abandoned that plan and is laying off nearly 60% of its workforce.

The company’s original business plan was to create new medicines in the same categories as high-priced cancer and specialty drugs and to sell them at lower prices through a “global buyers club” that included insurers and hospitals. That plan was short-circuited, the company’s founders said, in part because of a decision by the Food and Drug Administration not to allow data from China to be used to back the approval of one of the first drugs it had in-licensed as well as by the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which could result in lower drug prices and reduce the need for competition.

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Instead, EQRx is focusing on only one of several medicines it was developing — a compound called lerociclib — and on finding new medicines it can acquire using the $1.3 billion it has left from when it went public in December 2021 through a special purpose acquisition corporation, or SPAC.

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