Wyeth to Refocus R&D and Cut Jobs
.jpg)
According to the WSJ Health Blog “Wyeth is overhauling its early-stage research by slashing in half the number of therapeutic areas and diseases for which it will pursue new medicines. The idea is to concentrate on more innovative products and get them to market faster.” Whenever large companies restructure or announce reorganization plans, job cuts are soon to follow. So, if you are a Wyeth employee I recommend updating that resume as soon as possible!
People close to the R&D restructuring (part of a larger plan, dubbed Project Impact) said the overall number of scientific jobs won’t change under the plan but some scientists will be cut because their skills aren’t transferable to other areas. Wyeth will eliminate discovery work in women’ health, reduce its therapeutic areas from 14 to 6 and continue to focus vaccines and biologics, where it has had great success with its pediatric pneumococcal vaccine, Prevnar, and the anti-inflammatory biologic Enbrel.
Wyeth joins several pharmaceutical companies, including Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer, which have already decided to narrow the focus of their development efforts and focus more on biotechnology products. Don’t be surprise if other pharmaceutical companies announce similar restructuring plans. I predict that within 10 years or so, pharma companies will no conduct basic discovery research and abandon their internal pipelines. Instead, they will become drug “clearing houses” that specialize in developing products that were either purchased or in-licensed from smaller biotechnology and specialty pharmaceutical companies.
Until next time…
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!
