Orange County’s hub of diagnostics and testing firms say they are seeing plenty more business as a result of their work treating infectious diseases and other offerings, though shifting employment models means the area’s local base of workers hasn’t shown growth.
The local diagnostics and testing sector—a collection of test makers and laboratories for infectious diseases and various cancers, specialized equipment manufacturers, and testing product suppliers—counts a local worker base of about 4,325, according to this week’s Business Journal list, which includes 15 companies.
That’s down 2.6% from last year’s list, which included 14 companies.
Five companies on the list—which ranks companies by their local employee count—reported year-over-year declines in local employees, six posted increases, and the rest are Business Journal estimates.
Notable declines were at the top of the list. Brea’s Beckman Coulter Diagnostics, No. 2 on the list, reported a 100-person decline in local employees, while Aliso Viejo’s Ambry Genetics Corp., a unit of locally based Realm IDx, said its local base now totals 479, down from over 500 a year ago.
New work-from-home models accounts for Beckman’s reported decline. Over 70% of the company’s workforce adopted hybrid or completely remote work models since the start of the pandemic, according to Beckman President Julie Sawyer Montgomery.
“The pandemic rewired the way top workplaces think about where work is done,” Montgomery added. “We’ve embraced a hybrid model for roles that could flex to work both remotely and on-site,” she said, adding that the company’s global employee base of 11,000 “responded positively” to the change.
A similar move is responsible for Ambry’s decline in reported local workers.
“Like many other companies we adopted a work-from-home hybrid model,” RealmIDx officials told the Business Journal last week. “We embraced a hybrid culture and have allowed the majority of our employees to benefit from remote work to encourage a better work-life balance and more flexibility.”
Local Gainers
Other area companies report that their local employment bases are still well in growth mode.
Fluxergy LLC, which pivoted to building a one-hour COVID-19 test analyzing system at the start of the pandemic, last year expanded its Irvine operations, adding a new 30,000-square-foot facility across the street from its main headquarters in the Spectrum area of the city.
The company, which now has a local employee base approaching 100, has reportedly received more than $50 million in investments from John Tu, the billionaire co-founder of Fountain Valley memory product giant Kingston Technology Corp.
Lung cancer drug test developer Oncocyte Corp. (NYSE: OCX), which moved to OC from the Bay Area city of Alameda about two years ago, said its local worker base has nearly doubled over the past year, to around 60 people.
In addition to building out its local workforce, Oncocyte has been forging ahead with plans to expand its R&D; presence in OC and has built out genomic and CLIA labs in the county, said Oncocyte Chief Executive Ronald Andrews.
“We are launching four major products from our CLIA lab operations over the next 18 months and expect to continue to grow our employee base in Southern California, as well as in our Nashville lab,” he added.
The company is valued at $150 million.
IPO Plans
A pair of area diagnostics companies were among the many OC firms trying their hand at raising money in the public markets last year via initial public offerings.
One was completed, while another is still awaiting the go-ahead for an IPO.
MDxHealth Inc. (Nasdaq: MDXH), an Irvine and Belgium-based developer of prostate cancer diagnostics, raised $45 million in a November listing.
The commercial-stage company is domiciled in Belgium, but its primary commercial focus is the United States, where over 95% of its tests are performed and its revenues are generated. As of Sept. 30, 90% of its total employees base were in Irvine. It is now valued around $135 million.
Still in the registration process is Agendia Inc., an Irvine-based provider of genomic breast cancer tests, which in October filed plans to raise $75 million.
Agendia, incorporated in 2003 in the Netherlands but based in Irvine, says it’s the only molecular diagnostics company focused solely on developing tests for breast cancer, the leading cause of cancer death in women around the world.
