Roche’s Genentech is planning staff reductions of more than 200 at its biomanufacturing facility in San Mateo, California. The company reported the changes in an August 10, 2018 WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act) filing with the State of California Employment Development Department. A WARN notice is a federal requirement that provides notification of job reductions to various parties, including the appropriate unit of local government.

The 223 layoffs across several departments began August 31 and will finish in November 2018.

The restructuring at the San Mateo facility follows other recent restructuring moves. Roche announced staff reductions in November 2017 at two of its manufacturing facilities, one in Vacaville, California, and one in Kaiseraugst, Switzerland. The company cut 130 workers from its biologics manufacturing plant in Vacaville and planned an additional 235 cuts from its site in Kaiseraugst, which will mainly occur in 2019 and beyond.

The changes at Vacaville were due to current and anticipated production requirements and shift-schedule adjustments. The Kaiseraugst site hosts quality control, packaging and manufacturing as well as information technology. The reductions there were due to changes in which the company handles packaging. Roche plans to relocate its packaging unit for established, chemically produced medicines with large production volumes mainly to other locations. In the future, plans foresee to package each product at the site where it is produced.

Source: Roche and State of California Employment Development Department