Barely a week into his tenure, Alex Snow, the newly appointed CEO of Sensyne Health, is already shaking things up at the troubled company.
The Oxford-based artificial intelligence developer has for months been grappling with a financial crisis that led it to abruptly swap in a new CEO, explore a potential sale, begin the process of taking its stock off the public market and, as of this month, see its cash-on-hand drop to a mere 1.52 million pounds sterling, or about $1.9 million.
Next up in the cost-cutting playbook: layoffs. This week, Sensyne’s 124 employees were informed that between 75 and 80 could be on the chopping block as the company goes through a formal consultation process, a spokesperson confirmed to Fierce Medtech.
The layoffs would take place if certain jobs are made redundant as Sensyne pursues “plans to restructure the business to focus on its core real-world patient data business unit and work in partnership with the National Health Service and the life sciences community to develop and discover new medicines,” the spokesperson said, but added that the company will “endeavor to reassign individuals from redundant roles.”
Sensyne develops AI-powered data analytics software that’s meant to be used by life sciences R&D teams and healthcare providers to improve drug development and patient care, respectively. It focuses on ensuring all medical data processed by its software are done so ethically, with patient privacy a main priority.
Sources told the U.K.’s Sky News that some of the jobs in the workforce-reduction crosshairs could be preserved if Snow’s plans to sell off several of Sensyne’s divisions go through. In that case, the jobs would instead be transferred—along with their respective divisions’ other assets—to the new buyers.
Though Sky News didn’t specify which segments the company hopes to shed, its sources said Snow has already begun the process of cleaving them from the rest of Sensyne’s business.
The company’s financial issues date back at least to last fall. In November, Sensyne said it had begun exploring a potential buyout either by management or an external party. That announcement came shortly after it reported an operating loss of 27.9 million pounds ($35 million) for the year ending April 30, against total revenues of 9.1 million pounds ($11.4 million).
In explanation for its decision to pursue a sale, Sensyne cited its belief that “the current market value of the company does not reflect the fair value of the electronic patient record health data to which the company has access through its strategic partnership agreements with U.K. NHS Trusts and U.S. health systems.”
In January, it secured emergency financing to add up to 11.35 million pounds to its coffers in an attempt to bulk up its cash position that then stood at 2.5 million pounds. At the time, Sensyne reported that for the six months ending Oct. 31, it had taken in only 1 million pounds in revenue against an operating loss more than 14 times that.
By the beginning of this month, as its cash flow dropped, the company amended the January financing agreement to add more loan notes totaling up to 15 million pounds. It also took steps to stop public trading on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM)—where it’s been traded since a 2018 IPO that carried a market cap of 225 million pounds—and shared that its CEO and founder Paul Drayson, Ph.D., had agreed to step down, effective immediately.
Snow, formerly the deputy chairman of another U.K.-based AI developer, Exscientia, took over Drayson’s place at the helm April 18. In the wake of his appointment and the updated financing, Sensyne decided to end its search for a buyer and moved forward in delisting from the AIM, pending shareholder approval.