The majority of affected employees were notified yesterday, BioMarin said. BioMarin had already announced plans to cut its pipeline in half, but now the company has confirmed that 170 employees are also leaving the building as part of the R&D restructure. The job cuts represent around 5% of the company’s workforce and are related to this “portfolio assessment,” a BioMarin spokesperson told Fierce Biotech in an emailed statement yesterday. The layoffs, which the company’s management agreed on last week, are likely to incur pre-tax charges of around $15 to $20 million during the second quarter as a result of severance and other employee termination benefits, BioMarin explained in a SEC filing (PDF). The majority of affected employees were notified yesterday, with the layoffs likely to be completed by the end of July, according to the filing.
“We are grateful to the impacted employees for their dedication to our mission of developing transformative medicines for patients,” the spokesperson told Fierce Biotech. “BioMarin is committed to providing support through this transition for those employees impacted.” While BioMarin didn’t explicitly refer to any layoffs when the strategic rethink was outlined during first-quarter earnings in April, the company did say at the time that the pipeline restructure would save up to $60 million in R&D costs this year, offset by up to $20 million that will be spent on accelerating the prioritized programs.