NeuroMetrix Inc. (NSDQ:NURO) and two other companies re-paid tax incentives to Massachusetts after failing to create enough jobs to meet the demands of the deal through which the funding came.
The Waltham, Mass.-based company, which has suffered sinking revenues over the past year, voluntarily surrendered the $300,000 that it procured through the Mass. Life Sciences Center’s $25 million Tax Incentive Program in late 2009, according to a center spokesman.
As part of the incentive program, NeuroMetrix committed to add 10 employees to its workforce by the close of 2010, but three consecutive quarters of decreasing sales, which were accompanied by a delisting warning from NASDAQ and major investor divestitures, made new hires unfeasible for the neurodiagnostics developer. In early January, the company laid off 27 percent of its workers, disbanded its sales operation and announced the planned phase out of its flagship product, the NC-stat.
Framingham, Mass.-based GTC Biotherapeutics Inc. also returned the $300,000 it received in 2009 through MLSC tax incentives for the creation of 10 jobs, according to the spokesman.
Genzyme Corp. (NSDQ:GENZ) returned the $6 million that the state provided the company to add 200 new jobs, according to MLSC. Although the it was able to meet those demands, two divestitures reduced its workforce significantly. The Cambridge, Mass.-based biotechnology firm sold off its diagnostics business to Sekisui Chemical Co. Ltd. (TYO:4204) for $265 million and offloaded the Genzyme Genetics unit to Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (NYSE:LH) in a transaction valued at $925 million.
The MLSC won’t know whether all 28 companies that participated in the 2009 incentive program met its job creation requirements until Feb 1.
InfraReDx Inc., Interlace Medical, Inc., Lightlab Imaging Inc., Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Nova Biomedical Corp., Organogenesis, Shire HGT Inc., Still Rivers Systems Inc. and Sunovion Inc. (formerly Sepracor Inc.) all made enough of an increase to their staffing numbers to have met the program’s demands, according to the spokesman. Each one of the companies won tax incentives in late 2010 as part of the MLSC’s $24 million round for 2011.
