EVERETT — SNBL USA said cutbacks in the development of new drugs forced the testing company to lay off 30 workers this week.
The company, which had employed about 350 people, performs tests using primates to determine the safety of new drug compounds.
“It’s really relate
d to the economy and less activity from pharmaceutical companies doing drug development,” said Brian Baker, executive director of client services for SNBL. “We need to reduce our capacity for running studies.”
Baker said the company expects to do about 20 percent less testing this year.
He said the company has typically avoided layoffs, partly because it is owned by a Japanese firm. He said the staff also has a strong degree of specialized technical knowledge that’s important to the company.
The layoffs amount to about 8 percent of the work force.
“SNBL has a long history of not letting people go,” he said. “When conditions improve we expect to be hiring people back again.”
The work the company does is early in the drug process and is designed to ensure that the compounds are safe to proceed to human trials, Baker said.
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