Sema4, a patient-centered health intelligence company involved in COVID-19 testing, is bringing hundreds of jobs to Connecticut. The company is opening a new 70,000 square foot lab in Stamford in an old chocolate factory.
“We’re moving from a space in Mount Sinai that’s less than 20,000 total square feet, so it’s an incredibly huge upgrade for us and we’re really excited about it,” said Dr. Jamie Coffin, Sema4’s president and chief operating officer.
Sema4 is the same company that earlier this year expanded its Branford lab, where it processes rapid COVID-19 tests.
Inside the new lab in Stamford it will process thousands of tests relating to oncology and women’s health.
“Our biggest test is called the expanding carrier screen where we look for 502 genes in women who are pregnant or becoming pregnant to look whether or not there’s going to be any diseases the could be passed on to their children. So that’s our main testing and then we do an enormous amount of testing now both around hereditary cancer and patients that are currently with cancer, trying to help them decide what their best treatments plan are,” Coffin said.
There are already 300 people working in Connecticut at the company’s headquarters in Stamford and the Branford lab. This new lab will add 225 to 250 jobs.
“We also see an enormous opportunity for us to take advantage of the huge workforce in the state of Connecticut. So we’re working with the biotechnology association in Connecticut called BioCT and most of the major universities to look at how we start to bring lots of new technologists on,” said Coffin.
The new lab will be fully up and running in January.
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