Yesterday Illumina ($ILMN) spooked investors with the news that its third quarter sales had fallen shy of Wall Street estimates as worries over prospective cuts in the NIH's research funding took a toll on sequencing tech orders. Today it spelled out the cost: 200 jobs, or some 8% of its workforce.
The company noted the cuts in an SEC report, according to GenomeWeb News. "These steps are being taken to better align the company's organization and cost structure in consideration of uncertainties associated with academic and government research funding and the global economic environment," Illumina said in the filing.
Illumina intimated as much in its third quarter report yesterday, but didn't detail how many workers would get pink slipped. The company's third quarter profits took a nasty 20% dive, leaving Illumina CEO Jay Flatley voicing doubts not only about NIH funding but academic funding in general as well as problems with a product launch.
"We are not as optimistic, and believe researchers will take longer to grow into existing sequencing capacity especially when bioinformatics solutions continue to lag," warned Oppenheimer's David Ferreiro, according to the GenomeWeb story. "Moreover, we remain concerned that investors have yet to appreciate [Illumina's] leverage to the declining microarray market."
- here's the story from GenomeWeb News