GRAIL said on Tuesday (Aug 13) it has cut about 350 existing jobs as the diagnostics company focuses on the development of its flagship cancer-detection test Galleri, sending its shares up more than 11 per cent in extended trading.
The company, which listed its shares on the Nasdaq after being spun out of gene sequencing machine maker Illumina in June, is betting that commercial partnerships of Galleri with health systems, employers and life insurance companies would fuel its near-term growth as an independent entity.
“As part of this restructure, we are reducing existing headcount and planned hires for 2024 by about 30 per cent and substantially decreasing investment in product programmes beyond Galleri,” Grail said.
Galleri is a blood test designed to detect more than 50 types of cancer and is currently sold only in the US Grail CEO Bob Ragusa said in June the test detects 80 per cent of cancers currently not screened for that result in cancer-related deaths.
Grail expects these cost reductions to extend its existing cash runway from the second half of 2026 into 2028 and anticipates reducing its burn in 2025 to US$325 million.
Illumina had spun off Grail in 2016 but retained a 12 per cent stake. It re-acquired Grail in 2021 to enter the cancer early-detection market despite competition concerns.
Last December, Illumina said it would spin off the cancer diagnostic test maker after the companies battled US and European antitrust enforcers for more than two years and faced fierce opposition from activist investor Carl Icahn.
Antitrust regulators opposed the deal over concerns that Illumina would stop Grail’s rivals from accessing its technology to develop competing blood-based early cancer detection tests.
Grail on Tuesday also reported second-quarter revenue of US$32 million, up 43 per cent from the year earlier. It sold more than 215,000 Galleri tests during the period. REUTERS
