CT-Based Sema4 To Cut 500 Jobs, Close Stamford Laboratory

STAMFORD, CT — Sema4, a Stamford-based genomic-testing biotech company, announced on Monday that it will cut approximately 500 jobs, close its Stamford laboratory and end reproductive health testing.

"We made the difficult decision to exit the reproductive health business and, regretfully, will separate with approximately 500 employees of which roughly half are Connecticut-based colleagues," a company spokesperson told Patch in an emailed statement.

"We are focused on establishing a scalable path to profitable growth and optimizing for operational and commercial efficiency. These changes better align Sema4 to accomplish those goals and allow us to focus on and accelerate other areas of our business that enable us to impact patients in more powerful ways. Our headquarters remains in Connecticut and we will have a total headcount of approximately 1,100 employees across the state and other locations."

Sema4 said it expects to leave the reproductive health testing business by the first quarter of 2023. Customers will be notified that the company is accepting samples through Dec. 14, 2022.

For more information on changes to reproductive health testing at Sema4, click here.

The announcement on Monday came with third quarter financial results for the company.

Total revenue for the third quarter of 2022 was $83.2 million compared to $43.2 million in the third quarter of 2021, according to financials released Monday. Sema4 acquired GeneDx, a genomic testing and analysis firm, earlier this year.

However, the net loss in the third quarter of 2022 was $77.6 million. In the nine months that ended Sept. 30, Sema4 saw a net loss of about $240 million.

"As we look ahead, I am excited by the performance of the business representing our future. Our pediatric and rare disease franchise is setting new internal records, generating over 50 percent revenue growth in the third quarter and delivering over 40 percent in adjusted gross margin," said Sema4 President and CEO Katherine Stueland in a news release Monday.

"We believe that our focused commercial and R&D efforts provide the right foundation for us to target higher growth areas of the genomics market and optimize our data and health insights go-to-market strategy," she added.

Stueland went on to say that the combination of these efforts will help the company grow revenue in excess of 20 percent over the next several years.

Stueland was the former president and CEO of GeneDx. She was appointed CEO following the acquisition in May.

Former Sema4 founder and CEO Eric Schadt left the company and resigned from his role as president and chief research & development officer in August. That month, Sema4 announced that it was eliminating approximately 250 positions, and moving its hereditary cancer testing operations from Stamford to Gaithersburg, Md., at the end of the third quarter of 2022.

Also in August, the company said it planned to leave the somatic tumor testing business, and close the clinical laboratory in Branford, CT, effective Dec. 31, 2022.

Sema4 was spun out of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in June 2017, according to its website.

For more information and to view Sema4's third quarter financial report, click here.