Genentech will permanently lay off 103 workers at its South San Francisco headquarters this month, according to a notice filed with California officials.
The cuts were scheduled to take effect July 29 at the company’s campus at 1 DNA Way, marking another round of layoffs at one of the biotechnology industry’s best-known companies.
Genentech, founded in 1976, describes itself as the original biotechnology company. Its South San Francisco campus also serves as the headquarters for Roche pharmaceutical operations in the United States. The company says it has about 12,100 U.S. employees.
The new layoffs follow other recent cuts at Genentech. In June, Fierce Biotech reported that three Genentech vice presidents — Vishva Dixit, Man-Wah Tan, and Todd McDevitt — were among those dismissed in a restructuring of the company’s Research and Early Development group, known as gRED.
Those layoffs were first reported by Endpoints News, which cited an internal communication saying Genentech was shutting down its physiological chemistry and infectious disease teams and reducing staff in other groups. Endpoints said the communication was an email from Aviv Regev, who leads gRED.
“To stay ahead in a fast-moving industry and continue to deliver world-class science and medicines, we must continually evolve how we work,” a Genentech spokesperson told Fierce Biotech at the time. “This requires making difficult decisions to focus our resources on the work that creates the highest impact for patients.”