Fayetteville’s Namida Lab adjusts focus to Auria sales, trims workforce

Fayetteville-based biotechnology company Namida Lab has restructured and pared back expectations for a $20 million series A fundraising round that’s now expected to be in the single digits, the company’s founder and CEO said.

Omid Moghadam said three full-time staff were laid off, and the lab currently has six full-time staff and some contract workers.

The layoffs included Dr. Anna Daily, chief scientific officer and inventor of the lab’s breast cancer screening product, Auria. Moghadam said the lab has changed its focus to Auria sales from research and development. The lab was looking to develop six other cancer screening products, but that work has been shelved for now.

Moghadam explained the challenges in raising money from venture capital, especially for life sciences. He said venture capital money was widely available when interest rates were 0%, but investors are not making as many investments as they were in 2022. Coupled with that are the challenges the life sciences sector has faced, and he pointed to the share value of genetic testing company 23andMe that’s declined to less than $1.

“It’s almost a perfect storm,” he said. “We had to pare back our ambitions and make the company smaller, cut costs and focus on just one product that we have… We had to make some difficult decisions, and we did have some layoffs.”

Still, Namida Lab looks to double sales of Auria this year to at least $1.5 million from last year as it works on a smaller-than-expected series A fundraising round. Auria remains available online, including at Amazon and Walmart.com. Also, Namida Lab is working on contracts with large employers and healthcare groups to increase business-to-business sales. Money from the smaller fundraising round would be used to bolster the lab’s business-to-business sales.