Ventana Medical Systems/Roche Tissue Diagnostics has laid off 84 employees at its Oro Valley operation to address a “challenging business environment,” the company said.
A variety of positions were affected across departments including research and development, marketing and human resources, Ventana spokesowman Jacquie Bucher said.
Ventana/Roche is one of Southern Arizona’s biggest employers, reporting 1,286 full-time equivalent workers at the start of 2016 in the Star 200 survey of the region’s major employers.
The affected employees will have the opportunity to apply for open positions at Ventana, or the broader Roche organization, she said.
“Through the course of normal business, we constantly review our performance, resources and spends,” Bucher said in an email. “This action was taken to address the challenging business environment and to rebalance our headcount to meet the needs of our current projects.”
The recent job moves are unrelated to a plan Roche announced in November 2015 to restructure its small-molecule drug manufacturing network, she said.
Roche recently agreed to sell a drug manufacturing plant in Florence, South Carolina, to another drug company after announcing it would close the plant along with three plants in Europe in a cost-saving move.
Ventana develops and makes diagnostic instruments and tissue tests for cancer and other infectious diseases, including so-called companion tests to match patients to Roche drugs for breast, lung and skin cancer.
In October, Swiss-based Roche reported strong sales growth in the third quarter, with a 7 sales at its diagnostics division rising 7 percent to $8.3 million.
Roche, based in Basel, Switzerland, has expanded its facilities and workforce at Ventana since it acquired the University of Arizona technology spinoff for $3.4 billion in 2008. The company had about 800 local workers at the end of 2008.
Ventana was founded in 1985 by UA pathologist Dr. Thomas Grogan based on his invention of an automated slide-staining device for tissue pathology.
