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Illumina Announces Multiple Rounds of Layoffs

NEW YORK – Illumina said on Monday that it began another round of layoffs last week with more to come in the third quarter. It will also move out of a satellite campus in San Diego and is mulling options regarding its presence in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The firm disclosed the plans in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, but it did not provide the number of jobs it plans to eliminate. According to posts from laid-off employees on LinkedIn, at least some of the cuts came in R&D. Illumina did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.

Illumina also disclosed plans to exit its i3 satellite campus in San Diego. Moreover, the firm is "evaluating its options with respect to" its Bay Area campus in Foster City, California. Illumina "carries assets on its balance sheet related to these campuses valued at approximately $60 million and $186 million, respectively," the firm said. Recently departed CEO Francis deSouza had worked primarily out of the Bay Area offices.

In its filing, the sequencing firm said the layoffs were part of its plan to trim more than $100 million from its spending this year but noted that it expects severance and related costs of approximately $25 million to $35 million tied to the cuts. They also follow a round of layoffs in late 2022 that saw Illumina cut approximately 500 employees — 5 percent of its global workforce at the time.

Illumina said it expects most of its severance costs to be incurred in the second quarter of 2023 and "substantially all of these charges will have been incurred by the end of 2023," the firm said.

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