Celera to Cut 13% of Workforce

Diagnostic test manufacturer Celera will cut 80 jobs, or 13% of its labor force, in the wake of a drop in revenue in Q2.

Rockville, Maryland’s Celera Corporation was formerly a business unit of the Applera Corporation, but was spun off in July 2008 to become an independent publicly traded company. Celera focuses on genetic sequencing and related technologies.

It was established in May 1998 by the Perkin-Elmer Corporation, for the purpose of generating and commercializing genomic information to accelerate the understanding of biological processes.

The firm has sequenced the genomes of Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly), Anopheles gambiae (mosquitos), and Homo sapiens (hairless ground-dwelling apes).