Shake up in Caliper boardroom
specialist Caliper Technologies are leaving the company in a
reorganisation aimed at cutting costs and breaking even in cash
flow terms in 2005.
Among those departing the company are James Knighton, chief financial officer, and founder and chief technology officer Michael Knapp. They top the list of a number of management positions that will go in the wake of Caliper's July merger with lab automation company Zymark. Seven positions at the vice president level will be eliminated.
Caliper also said that it is planning a second round of job cuts that will result in the net reduction of 65 positions, or 12 per cent of its workforce. The cuts will generate more than $10 million in annual savings, according to chief executive Kevin Hrusovsky.
"Today's announcement is the culmination of the new Caliper's reorganisation plan as outlined in August of this year," said Hrusovsky.
The company expects to hire a new CFO before the end of this year. It also named Anne Kopf-Sill to the newly-created position of vice president, molecular diagnostics. Kopf-Sill is currently vice president microfluidics R&D and will be succeeded in this post by Andrea Chow.
Meanwhile, Yvonne Linney has been named senior director of microfluidics marketing and Seth Cohen becomes director of application scientists. Linney was previously with Amersham, and Cohen was formerly with Millennium Pharmaceuticals.
