NEW YORK – PerkinElmer, Siemens Healthineers, and SummerBio are laying off workers and closing facilities, according to documents filed with the California state government.
In the case of PerkinElmer and SummerBio, the moves reflect weakening demand for COVID-19 testing, while the Siemens layoffs are related to ongoing consolidation of the company's in vitro diagnostics reagent manufacturing operations, Siemens spokesperson Lance Longwell said via email. Representatives from PerkinElmer and SummerBio did not respond to requests for comment.
Siemens is closing its Los Angeles IVD reagent manufacturing center as it consolidates this operation to three US locations — Newark, Delaware; Elkhart, Indiana; and Walpole, Massachusetts — and its facility in Llanberis, Wales. Siemens said the closure will impact roughly 95 employees and added that they will have the opportunity to apply for other positions at the company.
In April, PerkinElmer filed a submission under California's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act indicating it planned on June 4 to lay off 75 workers as part of the end of its COVID-19 testing operations at the California Department of Public Health’s Valencia laboratory. It filed another WARN submission in May, announcing layoffs on June 4 of 76 employees at the site. The company's contract COVID-19 testing contract with CDPH ended on May 15.
Menlo Park, California-based SummerBio filed a WARN submission on June 14 announcing that it is laying off 101 of its employees and closing its laboratory at the beginning of September. According to a report in Bay Area Inno, the company is shutting down all operations.
In March, SummerBio Cofounder and Chief Business Officer Sasha Seletsky, said the company aimed to be a long-term provider of COVID-19 testing for California. In February, the California state government put out its SMARTER Plan, which laid out its long term strategy for dealing with COVID-19. Among its components is a call to maintain total statewide testing capacity of at least 500,000 tests per day.