Lower than a yr after it went public, diagnostics firm Cue Health has laid off 170 manufacturing employees.
First reported by STAT, Cue mentioned the layoffs mirrored bigger financial situations, in addition to the federal authorities’s latest transfer to divert funding from COVID-19 testing to safe vaccines and coverings.
The diagnostics firm is greatest recognized for its at-home molecular COVID-19 test, which makes use of a $250 reader and single-use check cartridges, sending outcomes to a smartphone. When Cue went public in its $200 million IPO, it detailed different diagnostics within the works that will finally be appropriate with its reader, together with exams for flu, RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) and sexual well being.
“We stay assured in our long-term technique as we proceed to broaden the variety of prospects we serve and advance our menu of future care choices, reinforcing our mission to enhance how healthcare is delivered by making it extra environment friendly and well timed, finally main to higher outcomes for folks’s well being,” a spokesperson advised MobiHealthNews.
THE LARGER TREND
Based in 2010, Cue rocketed to prominence within the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It closed a $100 million Series C round in June 2020 to assist the event and validation of its check, and was awarded $481 million from HHS and the Division of Protection to broaden manufacturing in October that yr.
The corporate wrapped up a $235 million financing round in Might 2021 and hit the general public markets in September. It posted revenue of $179.4 million within the first quarter of 2022, in comparison with $64.5 million within the first quarter of 2021. That also amounted to $2.8 million in web earnings, but it surely dipped in contrast with $19.7 million in the course of the prior yr quarter.
Cue has additionally expanded out of diagnostics, launching a virtual health platform late final yr.
“The purpose is all the time enabling anybody to entry the healthcare system, from house or wherever they’re. To make that extraordinarily simple, to convey the healthcare system to you,” the corporate’s cofounder and chief product officer Clint Sever advised MobiHealthNews on the time. “In order that digital transformation of the healthcare system stays our mission. And I believe this DTC [direct-to-consumer] launch is the primary main step in enabling that bigger imaginative and prescient.”
Nevertheless, Cue is not alone in relation to digital well being layoffs in latest weeks. Digital care unicorn Ro final week laid off 18% of its workforce, whereas hybrid supplier Carbon Well being let go of 250 workers in early June.
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