SurModics ($SRDX), the troubled Eden Prairie, MN-based drug-delivery company, keeps the bad news coming with an announcement that it will let 20 employees go, including CFO Philip Ankeny in a reorganization that will save between $1.7 million and $2 million a year, The Associated Press reports. That's about 9% of its workers. The move comes a little more than two months after Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Cordis decided to stop making its Cypher brand of drug-coated stents, which used a polymer technology licensed by SurModics.
Also going in the shakeup is human resources vice president Jan Webster and a manufacturing operation in Owings Mills, MD, will be consolidated in its corporate headquarters. "While a workforce reduction is always a very difficult decision, it was necessary to enable us to achieve our objectives," Gary Maharaj, SurModics' president and CEO, said in a statement.
Maharaj was recently named to lead the company after activist investment firm Ramius purchased a 12% stake in the company and set out to make changes in the money-losing business. SurModics responded by appointing Maharaj and announcing that it will likely sell off its pharmaceuticals unit to dedicate more resources in its medical device and in vitro diagnostics businesses. The pharmaceutical subsidiary includes microparticle and biodegradable implant drug delivery technologies and, according to the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal, accounts for nearly one-third of SurModics' $66 million in revenue.
- and read SurModics' release
- read the story in the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal
- The Associated Press filed this report
- here's what the Star Tribune reported
Editor's Note: The headline of this article incorrectly stated that SurModics cut 20% of its workforce. The company eliminated 20 jobs, or 9% of its workforce.