Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On January 12, Verily Life Sciences, the life sciences division of Google's parent company Alphabet, is being restructured and plans to lay off more than 200 people. This is the first time that Google's parent company has taken major layoffs after other technology giants have laid off staff.

Stephen Gillett, chief executive of Verily, said in an email to employees on Wednesday that the job cuts would affect about 15 per cent of jobs at the company, while "reducing or eliminating" some businesses and increasing investment in other businesses. Specifically, the company will stop developing a medical software project called Verily Value Suite and several early products.

In an email, Gillette asked employees to telecommute from home for the rest of the week because Verily's physical offices will be closed on Thursday and Friday. The company said it would provide severance pay and re-employment services "in the coming weeks and months", but had not provided details. Verily has a total of about 1600 employees.

"We can't do everything and have to make some tough choices," Gillett wrote in an email. " The company will hold a plenary meeting on January 18 to explain the changes in more detail, the email said.

Verily is working on a range of medical projects that focus on applying data and technology to patient treatment, including a virtual diabetes clinic and an online project linking research participants to clinical research.

"We are making adjustments to improve our strategy, optimize our product portfolio and simplify our operating model," Gillette wrote in an email. We will promote selected projects with more resources. "

Verily, originally known as Google Life Sciences, is one of Alphabet's largest subsidiaries after Google and is an important part of what is known as "other bets." As of the end of September last year, the company had 186779 employees, according to Alphabet filings.

In fact, Verily recently hopes to cut back on a series of huge programs, from insurance to mosquito breeding. Last year, the company hired McKinsey and Innosight to provide consulting services.

The restructuring shows that big technology companies trying to break into the healthcare industry still face difficult challenges.

This month, Gillette replaced renowned geneticist Andy Conrad as the new chief executive of Verily, and Conrad took over as executive chairman.

In an email to employees, Gillette said Verily would focus on products related to research and care, while more decisions would be made by more senior leadership teams, rather than individual teams.

Google's peers have recently been laying off staff to cope with the deteriorating economy and falling online advertising spending. Last week, Amazon announced that it would cut 18000 jobs, the largest number of layoffs at a technology company in the past year.

In response to questions about layoffs at a company-wide meeting in December, Sandal Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google and its parent Alphabet, said he could not make any forward-looking commitments. He added: "Google is optimizing its business as much as possible so that we can better weather the storm, no matter what happens in the future."

Activist investor TCI Fund Management called on Alphabet in November to reduce losses on other bets such as Verily and wrote in a letter to Pichai that the company had too many employees. Alphabet's other bets recorded an operating loss of $1.6 billion, compared with revenue of $209 million in the third quarter of last year, mainly from sales of medical technology and Internet services.

Verily said in September that it had received $1 billion from Alphabet and other investors, but did not identify its supporters. Private equity firm Silver Lake, Singapore fund Temasek Holdings and Ontario teachers' pension plan have all invested in the company before.

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