Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc. California Layoffs 2026: What Employees Should Know

What the filing says

These are the details as Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc. reported them to the state. The EDD publishes every notice, and this page reflects the data as of Jul 31, 2026.

How much notice the law requires

California's WARN Act requires 60 days of advance written notice before a covered mass layoff. What makes the California version unusual is how few ways out it gives an employer. The only statutory exception is a physical calamity or an act of war. Federal law has three exceptions, including one for unforeseeable business circumstances, and the California Legislature deliberately declined to copy them.

Sangamo Therapeutics severance: what to check before you sign

A severance offer is not the same thing as the notice pay the WARN Act describes, and an employer cannot use one to satisfy the other. A release may also give up more than you expect, and an arbitration agreement you signed at hire can affect where a dispute is heard. Read our full guide to the California WARN Act before you decide, and consider having the paperwork looked at.

Two things worth doing this week either way. File for unemployment now, because WARN money does not reduce it. And keep every document, including the notice itself and anything showing when it arrived.

What your notice was required to include

Timing is only half of what Labor Code section 1401 asks for. The notice itself has to contain specific things, and California added most of this list for notices issued on or after January 1, 2026. Every notice on this page falls after that date. If you kept your copy, it is worth reading down this list against it.

• Everything federal law requires. A California notice has to carry all the elements the federal WARN Act calls for, including whether the action is permanent, the expected date, and whether bumping rights exist.
• Whether transition help is being coordinated. The notice must say whether the employer is arranging services through your local workforce development board, through some other organization, or not at all.
• A working email and phone number for that board, plus a short standard paragraph pointing you to an America's Job Center of California for help with a resume, interview practice, job searching, and training programs.
• Services arranged within 30 days. If the employer said it would coordinate services, the statute gives it 30 days from the date of the notice to actually set them up.
• CalFresh information. A description of the CalFresh food assistance program, the benefits helpline, and a link to the CalFresh website.
• A working email and phone number for the employer. Not a no-reply address — a route back to a person.

Source: Labor Code section 1401, as amended by SB 617 (Stats. 2025, ch. 229), effective January 1, 2026. A notice missing something on this list is not automatically a violation with a remedy attached, and this page does not say that it is. Whether a gap matters depends on the employer, the action, and what else happened.

Questions people are asking

What has been reported

Press coverage of this layoff, summarized and attributed. This is reporting rather than the filing itself, and we did not independently verify it.

BioSpace reported on June 23, 2026 that Sangamo Therapeutics laid off 51 employees, about 40% of its workforce, as it filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and that affected staff were notified the prior day. Roughly 77 employees were retained to continue work on the programs and platforms central to stalking horse bids from Eli Lilly and Astellas Pharma.

Citybiz reported the same day that the filing was made in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware by the Richmond, California-headquartered company, which listed estimated assets and liabilities between $100 million and $500 million, and that the filing followed Sangamo's retention of Raymond James to evaluate strategic alternatives.

Fierce Biotech's 2026 layoff tracker records the June 23 action as the genomic medicine developer selling assets to Eli Lilly and Astellas while parting with around 51 employees as part of the bankruptcy process.

Sources: BioSpace (opens in a new tab) · citybiz (opens in a new tab) · Fierce Biotech (opens in a new tab)

What the numbers show

• The filings name 2 locations: Richmond and Brisbane.
• They cover 2 separate addresses rather than a single site, so co-workers at different locations may have received different dates.
• The shortest gap between notice and last day here is 0 days, against a statewide median of 61 days across every notice on file.
• Within Contra Costa County, this accounts for 6% of all workers covered by WARN notices on file, across 14 employers.
• The 51 workers leaving Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc. re-enter a job market where Contra Costa County unemployment stood at 4.5% in June 2026, below the 5.2% statewide rate (Bureau of Labor Statistics, not seasonally adjusted).
• All 2 notices are dated within a single month, June 2026, which reads as one event reported site by site rather than a rolling reduction.

These are counts and comparisons drawn from the published filings, not findings about Sangamo Therapeutics.

Free job-search help near the affected sites

America's Job Center of California is the state's no-cost network for laid-off workers: help filing and keeping unemployment benefits, federally funded retraining, and résumé and interview coaching. Your WARN notice may name one; these are the closest to the sites in these filings.

• RichmondWORKS (opens in a new tab)

  330 25th Street, Richmond, CA 94804 · 510-307-8014

  Comprehensive center (full services on site) · about 1.9 miles from the Richmond site

• Human Services Agency of San Francisco (opens in a new tab)

  3120 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 · 415-401-4800

  Affiliate center (partial services) · about 5.4 miles from the Brisbane site

Locations and hours change — confirm before visiting, or find another center with the EDD's center locator (opens in a new tab). Directory: U.S. Department of Labor, Jul 31, 2026; distances are straight-line from the address in the filing.

Other layoffs filed in Contra Costa County around the same time

14 employers have WARN notices on file in Contra Costa County, covering 821 workers. These filed within about a quarter of this one.

• Vine Hospitality365 workers
• Primary School294 workers
• LeeMAH Electronics212 workers
• Flagship Facilities Services, LLC198 workers
• First Transit, Inc.194 workers
• Acumen LLC & The SPHERE69 workers

Listed because they appear in the same county in the same public data. No connection between these employers is implied.