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NEW YORK, June 4 - Large Scale Biology today said it has laid off 58 employees since January and has trimmed the salaries of the company's highest-paid executives in an effort to muscle in cash burn.
The job cuts, which left Large Scale with 127 staffers, were made across the company's three national facilities: in Vacaville, Calif.; Germantown, Md.; and Owensboro, Ky.
Large Scale also said that roughly 28 of its highest-paid employees, or some 20 percent of its total remaining workforce, will incur 10-percent reductions in the cash-compensation portion of their salaries. The top three executives in the company will trim their take-home by 20 percent, Large Scale said.
Additionally, the company said that Leigh Anderson and father Norman Andreson have resigned. Larry Gill, a co-founder of the company with 15 years under his belt there, replaces the younger Anderson as chief scientific officer. Father and son will go on as consultants for Large Scale.
In a statement, John Fowler, president of Large Scale, said the job cuts, which are the first major ones in the firm's 15-year history, are "critical, unavoidable, and painful, all at the same time."
Large Scale also announced a broad management-reporting restructuring. Specifically, "all major business units and functions" will now report to Fowler, and Chairman and CEO Robert Erwin will "provide overall direction for the company's product pipeline and technical strategy."
The company has scheduled a conference call tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time.
"We believe these initial significant actions assure LSBC of the operating capital we need to achieve success in our commercial objectives," said Fowler. "Going forward, our short-term objective is to fortify the business with a three-year cushion of operating cash."