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Sequenom Inc., a San Diego developer of genetic testing services, is laying off 75 employees - about 12 percent of its workforce - in hopes of trimming $10 million in annual expenses to offset lagging revenue, according to a regulatory filing.
The company's quarterly revenue has been significantly lower than expected as it has faced difficulty collecting reimbursements from Medicaid and other insurers.
Sequenom (Nasdaq: SQNM) anticipates it will spend about $1.2 million in severance expenses for the third quarter, but that the layoffs will ultimately save the company $10 million per year, it said in a regulatory filing. The company had 594 workers as of March, it said in an earlier filing.
Despite its recent announcement, Sequenom intends to continue ramping up operations at its new $18.7 million laboratory and test processing site in Research Triangle Park, N.C., including plans to hire 242 people at the new facility by 2015.
Sequenom has been struggling in recent years to regain stock value following a 2009 incident involving manipulated testing data that sent its stock price tumbling. Shares for the company, which has a market capitalization of $353 million, closed...