J&J plans to cut over 350 employees from its medtech surgical subsidiaries starting at the end of April.

J&J to cut over 350 jobs from medtech surgical subsidiaries

March 13, 2023
by John R. Fischer, Senior Reporter
Johnson & Johnson has announced that it will lay off more than 340 workers within its Bay Area medtech sector, targeting jobs at its surgical technology subsidiaries.

Surgical robotics company Auris Health will see the largest cuts, with 292 positions gone, reported SFGATE. J&J purchased the Redwood City-based company in 2019.

Verb Surgical, in Santa Clara, will lose 47 positions, and surgical components company Ethicon Endo-Surgery and surgical insights software provider C-SATS will also see layoffs among their staff members.

J&J disclosed the cuts in WARN notices filed with the state Employment Development Department. The notices say that the company plans to begin laying off 352 employees at the end of April.

“As the world’s largest, most diversified healthcare company, we are constantly assessing ways to be more innovative and competitive,” Amanda Pisano, a spokesperson for Johnson & Johnson MedTech, wrote in a statement to SFGATE and dozens of other news outlets. “We are evolving amidst a rapidly changing environment to better meet the needs of the patients we serve around the world.”

J&J has experienced a series of layoffs since early February when executives told its Janssen pharmaceutical unit that an overhaul of its infectious diseases and vaccine groups was underway and would include layoffs worldwide, reported Fierce Pharma.

Then, as part of J&J’s upcoming plans to spin off its consumer health business into a separate business called Kenvue, the company cut 57 positions at its consumer branch in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

The employees affected worked at J&J’s Greenfield plant, which manufactures over-the-counter products such as Pepcid and Imodium, according to Lancaster Online. Those layoffs will start taking effect on April 28.

Additionally, the company plans to shut down the plant by the fall of 2023 and recently sold it with another OTC production plant for $59 million as part of its spinoff plans.