BOSTON — Ginkgo Bioworks, the once-high-flying Boston life sciences firm, on Thursday said it has notified 158 employees that they will be laid off and expects to announce another batch of layoffs next week.
On May 9, Ginkgo said it would slash labor costs by at least 25 percent. But the Boston-based cell programming and biosecurity company declined to specify the number of workers who would be let go.
This week Ginkgo said in a filing with the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development that it plans 158 layoffs. Joseph Fridman, a Ginkgo spokesman, said the company intended to disclose more planned layoffs to the state next week. He declined to say how many more.
Ginkgo had 1,218 employees at the end of last year, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“These are amazing employees who are being let go as part of changes we are making to our technology platform at Ginkgo and a near term focus on reaching breakeven,” Ginkgo’s co-founder and chief executive, Jason Kelly, said in a statement. “We are sad to see them go.”
Six weeks ago, Ginkgo reported lackluster earnings that, in Kelly’s words, necessitated “decisive action.”
Total revenue in the first quarter of 2024 was $38 million, down from $81 million for the same period last year, a decrease of 53 percent, according to the company.
The firm also lowered its predicted full-year revenue to a range of $170 million to $190 million, down about 20 percent from its previously predicted range of $215 million to $235 million.
In addition to cutting labor costs, the company announced it would consolidate some operations and shrink its footprint, potentially by subleasing excess space. Gingko has grown rapidly in the Seaport in recent years and broke ground on a new building on Fid Kennedy Ave. two years ago.
Days later, the firm reported more bad news. Ginkgo said it had received a notice from the New York Stock Exchange threatening to delist it because the company’s average closing price was less than $1 per share over 30 consecutive days of trading.
Exchange rules gave Ginkgo six months to bring its stock price up. The company said it intended to “regain compliance with [the] NYSE’s continued listing standards and is considering all available options to do so.”
Founded in 2008 by five scientists from MIT, Ginkgo was once one of the hottest venture-backed startups in Boston. In 2019, two years before the firm went public, it was valued at about $4.8 billion, according to PitchBook, a Seattle company that analyzes and sells data on the private markets.
Ginkgo began publicly trading in 2021 after merging with a special purpose acquisition company. But the firm has struggled since its market debut.
Ginkgo originally started as a synthetic biology business. In recent years, it has tried to expand its biosecurity business, which got started during the Covid pandemic, into monitoring wastewater for pathogens.
This story originally appeared in STAT’s sister publication, the Boston Globe.
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