NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – GeneNews said today that it has undertaken a restructuring of its North American and Asian operations that will result in the firm cutting its workforce in Canada, where it has its headquarters, by 40 percent.
The firm said that its Canadian operations would focus on Canadian and US commercialization of its lead product, ColonSentry, a genomics-based test for determining a person’s risk for colorectal cancer. It said that R&D activities, including patient sample accrual, will be moved to its operations in Asia.
As of March 20, GeneNews had 43 full-time employees, 2 part-time employees, 2 contract employees, 1 co-op student, and 1 consultant
"While these actions are difficult, when assessing the structure of our company and our strengths in Canada and Asia, we determined that there were efficiencies in research and development that could be better leveraged from our Asian operations in Penang, Malaysia and Tianjin, China," said Heiner Dreismann, lead director and interim CEO of GeneNews.
"Transferring this segment of our operations to our Asian facilities also enhances opportunities to access to capital from Asian sources, which GeneNews has successfully secured in the past, to support research and development activities including the accrual of patient samples to support our pipeline development,” he added.
The firm is in the process of launching the test in Canada and is gearing up for an expected US launch in the second half of 2009.