This story has been updated to incorporate additional information on the company's restructuring.
NEW YORK – Bioinformatics data analysis and management firm DNAnexus has initiated a restructuring program to "better allocate resources across the organization," GenomeWeb has learned.
As part of the restructuring, the Mountain View, California-based company laid off 20 employees last month, realigning its resources to generate 35 new positions across various departments. As a result of the restructuring, the firm's headcount will increase by a net 15, or roughly 6 percent from about 250 people before the reorganization.
"We are not shrinking," said DNAnexus CEO Thomas Laur. "The way to think about this is that it is a targeted restructuring for expansion."
According to Laur, the positions eliminated included product development, professional services, and engineering. "The selection criteria were really around areas where the solution is very mature, so we don't need as much support from a labor standpoint," he explained.
Laur made clear that the reorganization will not impact the company’s existing products and services, as the firm is "not walking back from anything." Moreover, he noted that the decisions do not reflect the impacted employees’ performance.
As DNAnexus restructures, it also plans to bring in 35 new hires to strengthen its enterprise offerings, Laur said. Specifically, it wants to grow as an end-to-end software platform provider for institutional customers and their data analysis and management needs.
The new positions, which will be filled rapidly over the course of weeks, will mainly cover several areas, including multiomics-related innovations, data management and analysis, and platform security. The company will also expand its capabilities for strategic partnership and its informatics consulting service offerings, Laur said.
Overall, the company has grown over the past 18 months. Its revenues since 2021 grew at a compound annual growth rate of 30 percent, he said, but he declined to give out revenue numbers.
Moving forward, the long-term goal for the company is to "continue to grow at the same velocity," Laur said. "The strategy at a high level is, we are going to continue to grow organically. Along the way, we will look at interesting potential partners or assets to acquire."
Laur said the company is "very well capitalized" to achieve its commercial goals, with no need to raise new funding in the foreseeable future. DNAnexus previously closed a $200 million funding round in March 2022 led by Blackstone Group.
Laur declined to say whether the company, which is privately owned, has yet achieved cash flow break-even or is currently profitable.