Verily Life Sciences, a unit of Alphabet Inc. formerly known as Google Life Sciences, plans to undergo a restructuring that includes cutting about 15% of its workforce and shaking up its C-Suite.
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Verily Life Sciences, a unit of Alphabet Inc. formerly known as Google Life Sciences, plans to undergo a restructuring that includes cutting about 15% of its workforce, the company announced Wednesday.
Stephen Gillett was appointed CEO of Verily on Jan. 3rd. In an email that opened with, “Dear Veeps,” he informed his staff of the restructuring plans and said Verily will drop multiple early-stage products including Verily Value Suite, a medical software program, the WSJ reported. The total job cuts will amount to more than 200 positions.
The restructuring will also include major changes to Verily’s C-Suite.
Gillett promoted Amy Abernethy, former FDA principal deputy commissioner and president of Verily’s clinical research platforms, to chief medical officer and president of product development, according to STAT.
Both Jessica Mega, co-founder and former chief medical officer, and Vivian S. Lee, president of health platforms, have already left the company.
In the same email, Gillett said Verily will “move from multiple lines of business to one centralized product organization with increasingly connected healthcare solutions.”
Verily will likely continue its plan to shift its focus to developing products for clinical trials, an initiative the company has been working toward since it closed a $700 million financing round in 2020.
As BioSpace previously reported, the financing was part of an Alphabet initiative to invest in its “Other Bets,” a term used to describe all Alphabet-owned companies other than Google.
Verily isn’t the only one of the “Other Bets” that has seen a rocky start to 2023.
Robotics software company Intrinsic also announced Wednesday it plans to cut 40 employees as part of a larger restructuring initiative.
While this may seem to point toward trouble at Google, it is likely a symptom of an economic downturn in the tech industry as a whole.
This wave of layoffs may not slow anytime soon. Roger Lee, the creator of Layoffs.fyi, said the cuts are likely due to the Federal Reserve’s decision to hike interest rates, calling the correlation “obvious.”
He has been tracking tech layoffs since the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and he predicted more large tech companies will announce their own rounds of layoffs over the course of 2023.
