Stamford, Connecticut-based Sema4, a biotechnology company specializing in genomic testing and data analysis to enhance diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, has announced the closure of its Stamford, Connecticut laboratory and a major reduction in its workforce.
The closure will impact 500 employees. The decision was driven by the company's plans to exit the reproductive-health testing business. The layoffs follow a previous layoff of 240 employees in August 2022.
According to a company official, “This decision was not made lightly and was informed by deep analysis, deliberation and scrutiny by our management team, advisors and board. We considered every possible option to preserve the reproductive-health business. In the end, we determined that the reproductive-health testing business was unsustainable and especially so in light of capital-market constraints and the macroeconomic environment. These changes better align Sema4 to accomplish those goals and allow us to focus on and accelerate other areas of our business that enable us to impact patients in more powerful ways.
“The Stamford lab will remain up and running beyond December 14, 2022, while we properly wind down all testing that is performed in that lab, at which point, all lab operations and testing will be performed in our Gaithersburg. Maryland lab."
As previously announced in August 2022, the company announced that its other lab in Branford, Connecticut, would close by December 31, 2022, as a result of its exit from the “somatic” tumor-testing business. Also in August, Sema4 announced that it would move its hereditary cancer-testing operations from the Stamford lab to its Gaithersburg lab to take advantage of “superior automatic capabilities.”
Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. We see good people being laid off through no fault of their own. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?