AmplifyBio is cutting costs, closing its R&D and characterization services site in South San Francisco and laying off employees in its Ohio-based preclinical CRO business, a company spokesperson confirmed to Fierce Biotech in an email.
The company acquired the Bay Area site from PACT Pharma in the fall of 2022. Its operations will be moved to AmplifyBio’s new manufacturing facility in New Albany, Ohio, the spokesperson said.
The move enables the company to “integrate early drug discovery and characterization more seamlessly with CMC activities and manufacturing scale-up,” the spokesperson said. “It also allows us to offer those services at more market-competitive prices as we consolidate them into the Ohio-based facility, which carries less cost overhead.”
The preclinical CRO layoffs are hitting corporate and operational departments equally, the spokesperson added, and are part of a reorganization meant to reduce time bottlenecks and eliminate communication silos.
AmplifyBio’s preclinical safety, efficacy, and toxicology unit is based out of a 220,000-square-foot facility in West Jefferson, Ohio, according to the company’s website, about 20 miles west of the state’s capital Columbus.
The company was spun out of Battelle in 2021.