February 23, 2024
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Baxalta laying off 100 employees in Thousand Oaks

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Baxalta, a biotechnology company with 1,200 employees in Thousand Oaks, is laying off 100 workers at that office on May 1.

Layoffs will affect 239 Baxalta employees across the state at offices in Thousand Oaks, Los Angeles and Van Nuys, according to notices filed March 2 with the state of California.

At Baxalta’s office at 1700 Rancho Conejo Blvd. in Thousand Oaks, 100 employees will be laid off on May 1. About 130 employees at Baxalta offices in Los Angeles and Van Nuys will also be laid off, according to the filings.

A Baxalta spokeswoman did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment on the layoffs.

On Jan. 11, Dublin-based Shire PLC finalized a $32 billion deal to buy Bannockburn, Ill.-based Baxalta. The company’s Thousand Oaks digs are the former Baxter Bioscience offices, where it makes drugs for patients with rare types of cancers. Baxalta also operates a production facility in Westlake Village.

Baxter International spun out Baxalta from its legacy medical products business in July.

When the companies announced the merger, Thousand Oaks City Manager Scott Mitnick told the Business Times he believed Baxalta was slowly scaling back production at the Westlake Village facility, but hadn’t heard anything yet.

Layoffs at all three offices will begin May 1. Other layoffs will take place at the Los Angeles office on July 2 and Oct. 15.

A Baxalta spokesman told other media outlets that the layoffs were not related to the merger. A Shire news release from Jan. 11 did not rule out layoffs as a result of the merger though.

“These annual cost synergies will be achieved by increasing efficiencies, leveraging the scale of combined businesses, aligning to Shire’s lean operating model and optimizing the combined (Research and Development) portfolio,” Shire said in the news release.

• Contact Philip Joens at pjoens@pacbiztimes.com.