NEW YORK – Illumina is laying off 118 employees at three sites in California. According to a report from the State of California's Employment Development Department, the company laid off 88 staffers in San Diego and 19 in Foster City on Nov. 5 and will lay off another 11 in Hayward on Feb. 3, 2020. Illumina declined to provide additional information on the dismissals. The company has more than 7,300 employees worldwide.
Owlstone Medical this week announced it has joined the EU-funded Exposome Project for Health and Occupational Research. The project participants aim to further elucidate the complex relationships between environment and disease by developing the concept of the working-life exposome, which considers all occupational and related non-occupational exposures, such as lifestyle, throughout the lifespan of an individual.
Owlstone Medical will receive an undisclosed amount of funding from the project to provide Breath Biopsy Collection Stations and Kits for the collection of breath samples, and the firm will perform analysis on samples received. The project participants anticipate that new data will be generated, particularly in the area of respiratory disease, by comparing the exposome and health status of workers in a range of industries with that of the general population. Non-invasive exposome biomarkers on breath will be developed to enable monitoring of lung health and burden of exposure, in combination with similar data obtained from blood.
Danaher announced Tuesday a quarterly cash dividend of $.17 per share of its common stock, payable on Jan. 31, 2020, to holders of record on Dec. 27, 2019. The conglomerate also announced a quarterly cash dividend of $11.88 per share of its 4.75 percent Series A Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock, payable on Jan. 15, 2020, to holders of record on Dec. 31, 2019.
Bioinformatics firm Seven Bridges said that it has completed International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27017 and 27018 and renewed its ISO 27001. These ISO certifications provide validation by a third-party audit firm that Seven Bridges meets strict security and compliance requirements for protecting data. ISO 27001 is the de facto international security certification, particularly important to the European market, which validates that the Seven Bridges Information Security Management System has been audited for compliance by an ISO certification body. ISO 27017 certifies information security for cloud services, and ISO 27018 ensures the protection of personally identifiable information — critical when human medical data is shared via a cloud service, the company said.
Biocept this week closed its previously announced underwritten public offering of 24.6 million shares of its common stock (or pre-funded warrants to purchase common stock in lieu thereof) and warrants to purchase up to 24.6 million shares of its common stock. Each share of common stock or pre-funded warrant was sold together with one warrant to purchase one share of common stock at a combined price to the public of $0.405 per share and warrant. Gross proceeds, before underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses, were approximately $10 million, Biocept said.
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