Titan Medical said it is temporarily furloughing 40 employees at its Chapel Hill, NC facility. The cost savings measure comes just a few days after the Toronto-based company said it was reviewing strategic options which include either a merger or sale of assets.

Upon news of the furloughs, the company’s shares were trading about 26% lower at 85 cents.

The surgical robotics company said the furloughs were a way to preserve cash while allowing it to continue working on the investigational device exemption filing with FDA.

With this announcement, the company will limit work to tasks related to the strategic review process, the IDE filing and fulfilling certain other contractual development and supply obligations. 
“While the company works through the strategic review process, and in view of the company’s capital position and the challenging market conditions, we have had to make the extremely difficult decision to place some of our employees on furlough,” said Cary Vance, Titan’s President and CEO. “These employees have made valuable contributions to the development of robotic assisted technologies, and as we have communicated to the impacted employees, we look forward to bringing our employees back to work if and as soon as we are able. While this is not the news we would want to have been sharing, it is a necessary measure that allows us to strategically maintain a workforce that supports the strategic review process while continuing to make progress towards an IDE filing.”

Titan is developing the Enos robotic single access surgical system. With the Enos system, Titan said it intends to initially pursue gynecologic surgical indications.

The firm’s troubles began bubbling up in 2019 when it said it was delaying filing 510(k) clearance of its single-port system called Sport.