Dive Brief:
- Thermo Fisher Scientific has notified the state of California that it plans to lay off 74 employees in Petaluma by Feb. 1, as the laboratory instruments maker further streamlines operations to reduce costs. The layoffs were reported in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice.
- The Waltham, Massachusetts-based company is not renewing its 10-year lease on the Petaluma facility, which expires in July, the North Bay Business Journal reported in November.
- Severance actions associated with facility consolidations and cost reduction measures affected about 4% of the company’s workforce in 2023, Thermo Fisher said in its third-quarter report.
Dive Insight:
Workforce reductions rippled through the medtech industry last year as companies focused on improving margins while navigating an uncertain post-pandemic economy.
After closing some facilities and reducing staff levels in California earlier in the year due to reduced COVID testing demand, Thermo Fisher signaled in July that it was targeting an additional $450 million in cost savings in 2023, including job cuts, due to the challenging macroeconomic environment.
The company pointed to weak customer spending and a faltering Chinese economy in lowering earnings and revenue forecasts again in October.
Thermo Fisher’s latest cutbacks follow lab equipment maker Agilent Technologies’ plan, disclosed last month, to lay off about 400 employees mostly in the first quarter of this year.
In its third-quarter earnings filing, Thermo Fisher said that as of Nov. 3, it had identified restructuring actions that would result in about $65 million in charges, primarily in 2023.
The company has also looked to grow through acquisitions, completing the purchase of real-world evidence provider Corevitas from Audax Private Equity for $912.5 million in cash in August.
In October, Thermo Fisher said it would pay $3.1 billion to acquire Sweden’s Olink Holding to expand in the proteomics market. Antitrust regulators in the UK and Germany are now reviewing the proposed acquisition, according to a December filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“The parties are working cooperatively with the regulators and continue to expect the Offer to be completed by mid-2024,” the companies said in the filing.