Exact Sciences says it remains committed to growing its presence in Madison after announcing layoffs.
The Madison-based diagnostics company in January said it will be investing another $350 million into its operations in the city, with a goal of creating more than 1,300 new jobs.
“This week’s actions do not affect those plans, in fact, we expect to end the year with a net positive increase to employee headcount,” company spokesman Scott Larivee said in an emailed statement.
His remarks came after Exact Sciences last week notified about 230 of its employees that their jobs are being eliminated. About 50 of those workers are based in Wisconsin. That’s out of about 7,000 employees around the world, around half of which are based in the state.
Larivee explained the cut positions are from various departments but don’t include any laboratory staff or international employees. He noted the company is continuing to hire and is urging the affected employees to apply for one of the open positions.
“Our company has grown rapidly over the past several years, both organically and through acquisitions, and has made great strides in achieving this mission,” he said. “However, headwinds like inflation as well as a need to prioritize the programs that will have the greatest impact on improving cancer care have resulted in aligning our workforce and resources closely to our highest impact programs.”
He added construction on expanding a clinical processing lab and warehouse in Madison is “already well underway.”
Since the company announced its continued expansion plans earlier this year, Larivee said the company has decided to pause construction on the R&D Center of Excellence in University Research Park project “for a couple of years while we focus our efforts and dollars on longer term growth opportunities.”
