The holidays will be harder for 120 BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (BRRM) employees as the San Rafael-based biotech company is cutting jobs.
The company, which has offices in Novato as well, will chop 32 employees there and 62 in San Rafael. The remaining 26 jobs lost will come outside Marin.
The cuts will save the life science company about $50 million annually, according to securities filings, but the reductions will cost the company $25 million this year. The pink slip parade will be completed by the end of 2022.
To put the cuts into perspective, BioMarin has about 3,000 total employees and of that number, 2,000 of those employees are employed in Marin. So, the firings represented 4% of the total company workforce.
The streeting of the employees was characterized by the company as rightsizing, creating a more efficient BioMarin and shrinking the layers of management. For the employees dusting off their resumes, it might be described more aptly like: Where the hell did my job go and how do I pay my mortgage?
The company said it planned to use a “significant portion” of its cost savings to reinvest in its early stage drug development.
BioMarin’s latest financials for the quarter ending Sept. 30 showed the company posting a cash total of $761.5 million, total assets of $6.2 billion and revenues of $505 million. That said, the company also banged out a net loss of $6.6 million. Over the last year, shares in the company have traded between $97.76 and $70.73, so the stock is healthy.
BioMarin is in the orphan drug business. In plainer language, this means BioMarin is engaged in producing drugs for diseases that have smaller patient populations and, in some cases, longer timelines to production. Orphan drug candidates enjoy special benefits from the Food and Drug Administration.
But like all life science companies know, no drug is guaranteed success.
An illustration of the hit-and-miss nature of biotech is the fact that BioMarin developed Roctavian, a one-treatment-only gene therapy for hemophilia patients. The drug won approval in Europe, but the FDA has held things up in the U.S. The company submitted a revised license request to the FDA, but any final action isn’t expected until March of next year.
Gas Pains
Novato has seen the future and it doesn’t include new gas stations. The Novato City Council served notice with the first reading of an ordinance banning new construction of gas stations or expansion of existing fuel outlets.
The move is a strong nod toward transitioning from fossil fuel transportation to electric vehicles. In August, a Marin Superior Court Judge halted a planned gas station project by Costco at its Novato location at Vintage Oaks shopping center. The project was the target of environmental advocates and sustainability fans.
Novato’s neighbor to the north, Petaluma, already has such a ban on its books and five other Sonoma-based cities have followed suit.
In August, California banned the sale of gas-powered cars in the Golden State beyond 2035 in an effort to address climate change.
Your Marin Moment
I very rarely use this column as a plug for anything, but as the holidays are here, here is a gift suggestion for the news junkie in your life or someone who enjoys laughing instead of crying about our current world. Sausalito’s Dave Pell has authored a splendid tome, Please Scream in Your Heart: Breaking News and Nervous Breakdowns in the year that wouldn’t end. In the book Pell takes a look back at 2020 and what took place. But the book goes far beyond a history snapshot.
His book is maddening in that it examines 12 months and made me realize how much of the craziness I had either forgotten, passed by or blocked out. It focuses on politics, Trump and Covid, but there are healthy dollops of key issues that shaped our country and planet. Since he lives in Marin, the book occasionally zeroes in on our community and how it reacted to issues or helped shape his POV.
If you are a fan of Trump, this book isn’t for you since you will struggle with big words. Also, it gives 45 the beating he so richly deserves. But then if you’re a Trump fan, why would you be reading my column?
Pell produces the daily newsletter NextDraft, which examines news in digestible bits with large dashes of humor and sarcasm. He has covered technology and invested in it for more than two decades. He is savvy and ballsy and seems like the kind of gent who would be fun to share an adult libation with.
