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Abbott Laboratories yesterday announced that it will buy Facet Biotech Corp. for about $450 million in cash. Facet, along with its development partner Biogen Idec, had planned on moving a potential monoclonal antibody (MAb) treatment for multiple sclerosis called daclizumab into late stage clinical development in the second quarter of this year. The company is also developing several different cancer treatments with other pharmaceutical partners.

Abbott’s purchase of Facet signals Abbott Laboratories’ ongoing commitment to biotechnology or protein-based drugs. The company launched Humira (a fully human MAb treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory diseases) several years ago and it has managed to glean market share from older competitor’s products including Remicade (Johnson & Johnson) and Enbrel (Amgen/Pfizer) to become a blockbuster drug. MAbs are viewed by many as the “drugs of the future.” At present, there are over 350 MAb-based products in various stages of discovery and clinical development.

Earlier in the year, Biogen Idec offered to purchase Facet for $17.50 per share. Company executives and shareholders rejected the offer citing that they thought it was too low. Abbott offered $27 per share which represented a 67 percent premium to Facet’s closing stock price of $16.21 on Tuesday.  Both companies’ boards of directors have already approved the deal which is expected to close some time in the second quarter. It is not clear how the purchase will affect Facet employees but expect to see layoffs and a mass exodus by company executives.

Look for more cash purchases of biotech firms by pharmaceutical companies as debt continues to accrue and venture money remains scarce and difficult to come by.

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!

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After announcing yesterday that it will be reorganizing and closing 6 of 20 R&D sites worldwide, Pfizer/Wyeth announced today that as many as 2000 R&D scientists will lose their jobs. I suspect that others will lose their jobs in the next few months or so.

The Pfizer/Wyeth and Merck Schering Plough mergers signal the beginning of the end of the traditional vertically integrated pharmaceutical business model. It is evident that pharma is shifting away from its almost 100 year focus on R&D and manufacturing to less labor intensive and costly activities like advertising, marketing, sales and distribution—things that drug makers have excelled in the past decade or so. Innovation will likely no longer come from within but from external sources including academia, biotechnology companies and third party vendors including CROs and CMOs.   

While the loss of thousands of R&D scientists will have little impact on the productivity and operations of life sciences companies themselves, it has serious implications for academic institutions that train life sciences graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. In the past, PhD scientists who were unable to find academic jobs too refuge and found gainful employment in the life sciences industry. However, American industrial R&D jobs are becoming harder and harder to find as larger companies continue to outsource those activities, to Asia, South America and Eastern Europe. And, the competition for the remaining jobs is becoming increasingly fierce. Put simply, academic institutions have to begin to realize that we no longer need as many PhD-trained life scientists as we have in the past. At present, there is a glut of PhD life scientists in the US, many of whom can’t find jobs. Perhaps, this should be taken into account before graduate school admissions committees determine the number of new graduate students they will admit next year.

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!!

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Employees of Pfizer/Wyeth were notified earlier today of impending changes and consolidation that will be taking place at the newly combined company. According to internal sources, Cambridge, MA, Groton, CT and Pearl River, NY will be the main centers of the combined company’s East Coast operations and San Francisco and La Jolla/San Diego CA will represent West Coast operations. In Europe, the research facility in Sandwich, England will be the main R&D center with a network of smaller sites, in locations such as Montreal, Ottawa, Cambridge UK, Aberdeen UK, and Dusseldorf, Germany providing expertise in vaccine production and biomanufacturing. The company’s China R&D Center in Shanghai will remain the focal point of operations in Asia,

There will be substantial reductions in headcount and the company’s R&D footprint. These include:

• The former Pfizer headquarters in New London, CT, which will be consolidated into the nearby Groton, CT site. Functions currently located at New London will be relocated to Groton
• Elimination of all R&D activities at Princeton, NJ; Sanford and the Research Triangle Park, NC; Chazy, NY; Rouses Point and Plattsburgh, NY; Gosport, Slough and Taplow, UK
• R&D activity will be substantially reduced at the Collegeville, PA and Pearl River, NY sites. Pearl River will remain a center for vaccine and biopharmaceutical development

I suspect that many of the employees who will lose their jobs as a result of the consolidation have already been or will be notified shortly of their fates. It is unfortunate that pharmaceutical companies continue to lay off thousands of employees when the US unemployment rate continues to rise and will likely hit 12 to 13 percent before it is all said and done. As expected, the combined company is reducing its US R&D operations and will likely outsource or purchase these activities from external sources. It is not a good time to be an American R&D scientist.

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!

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According to a report yesterday, Roche is reducing headcount at San Francisco-based Genentech by merging the information technology departments of its pharmaceutical and diagnostics divisions. The company didn’t disclose how many people would be losing jobs as a result of the consolidation.

The company previously merged all of its human resources functions and roughly 20% of HR personnel lost their jobs—although most were able to find new jobs within Roche.

A Roche spokeswoman added that the company will continue unifying its communication processes in an attempt to further reduce the size of its workforce.

Expect more announcements from Roche in the coming months.

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!

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Sepracor shareholders may be able to sleep better at night without the aid of the company’s top selling insomnia drug Lunesta after agreeing to be purchased on Thursday by Dainippon Sunmitomo Pharma of Japan. Dainippon will pay $2.6 billion for the rights to Lunesta and other drugs in Sepracor’s pipeline. 

This is the third deal in the last two year involving the purchase of American pharmaceutical companies by Japanese drug makers seeking to aggressively expand their reach into the US drug markets. Last year, Takeda Pharmaceutical purchased Cambridge, MA-based Millenium Pharmaceuticals for $8.8 billion and Eisai brought MGI Pharma of Minnesota for $3.9 billion. 

Sepracor, a specialty pharmaceutical company founded in 1984 focused on strategy of developing single isomers or chiral drugs and active metabolites of top selling drugs with the goal of developing a pipeline of proprietary pharmaceutical products. The company’s most successful product is Lunesta, a prescription sleep aid that had sales of almost $500 million in 2008.

Last January, the company layed off 20% of its workforce (350 sales reps, plus 410 contract sales reps) as Lunesta sales slumped because of competition from generic versions of Ambien and branded Ambien CR and revenue losses from its Xopenex COPD franchise. It isn’t clear whether or not more Sepracor will shed more jobs after the Dainippon deal closes sometime next year. 

Stay tuned for updates!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!

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The ink hasn’t had time to try on the deal sheet and Pfizer already has announced what the impact of its acquisition of Wyeth will have on the combined company. Here’s what to expect: Pfizer will shed at least 19,000 jobs from it newly combined work force of 128,000 employees; it will slash its stock dividend by 50%; and it will take a $2.3 billion charge to settle a federal investigation over off label promotion of its former pain drug Bextra. 

The combined company will be run by Pfizer’s CEO, Jeff Kindler, who joined Pfizer in 2006 after serving as legal counsel for McDonald’s. Bernard Poussot who became Wyeth’s CEO a little over a year ago will depart the company. As I mentioned in a post yesterday, Pfizer and Wyeth had been in talks for over a year before the deal was consummated. If the deal had closed last year, Mr. Poussot would have garnered a $38 million dollar severance package that included cash, pension, health benefits and other entitlements. But, because Wyeth’s board changed its compensation package for its CEO on January 1, he will only be entitled to a severance package of only $18.3 million. Not bad for a guy who ran the company for little over a year!

Other fallout from the deal includes: increased consolidation or purchase of cash-poor biotechnology companies—that will result in more layoffs and continue to reduce the life sciences workforce in the US— and the loss of a potential biotech dealmaker (Wyeth) that was aggressively pursuing M&A strategies and licensing opportunities with smaller, struggling biopharmaceutical companies. Most Wall Street analysts agree that the debt taken on by Pfizer to purchase Wyeth will prevent the company from participating in any new major acquisitions in the foreseeable future.

While the deal may ultimately benefit Pfizer, it certainly won’t help to improve the overall, short term health of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (I hear that they are hiring on the West Coast)

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