Sequenom Reorganizes its Genetic Analysis Business, Trims Workforce

San Diego-based Sequenom said today it’s laying off 30 employees, or 12 percent of its workforce, as part of a broader cost-cutting initiative in the company’s genetic analysis business. The company, which has developed a proprietary, high-performance system for precisely analyzing genetic material, says the restructuring was necessitated by the “continuing weak outlook in 2009 for capital equipment sales, particularly in the USA.”

The company remains on schedule in developing noninvasive prenatal genetic tests for use with its genetic analysis system, and still expects to launch one such test, for Down syndrome, in June, Sequenom spokesman Ian Clements said. Luke described Sequenom’s development of the diagnostic technology in January.

Sequenom had about 250 employees before the layoffs, which are effective immediately. (Check Xconomy’s San Diego layoff tracker here for our running tally of layoffs in the local tech sector.) The firm says it also is repositioning its genetic analysis business by focusing on developing new methods and assays for translational research and patient profiling in clinical trials. Sequenom’s business, which originally focused on developing genetic analysis equipment for sale to laboratories, has been shifting to providing analytical services. Clements says the cutbacks represent more of a reallocation of available resources in a soft market than a wholesale change in Sequenom’s genetic analysis business.

The restructuring is expected to decrease Sequenom’s costs by $8 million this year, and the company says it will provide additional details regarding its cost reductions with the release of its first quarter financial results, which is set for next Thursday.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.