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Pfizer announced today that is it closing a manufacturing facility in Cork Ireland.  Approximately 180 people will lose their jobs. Pfizer tried to sell the plant but was unable to find a buyer. The Cork plant will officially be closed sometime in 2009.  Another of Pfizer’s five Irish manufacturing facilities located in Ringaskiddy is also on the block. That facility employs about 300 people. Pfizer cites the 2006 failure of torcetrapib, an experimental cholesterol drug as the reason for the plant closings.

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Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly & Co announced today that it will transfer its clinical trial monitoring and data management operations to Quintiles and i3.  About half of the affected 265 Eli Lilly employees will lose their jobs.

Like other pharma companies, Lilly is looking at ways to cut costs. And as everyone knows, the best way to save money is to outsource operations and lay-off full time employees who are expensive because of high salaries and benefits.

Until next time….

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

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Despite an increase in profits, BMS announced today that it will continue with its Productivity Transformation Initiative (PTI) that was instituted last fall. According to the PTI, BMS must save $1.0 billion over the next 2 years. Of course, the only way to accomplish this is by laying off employees whose jobs are not directly related to the process of transforming BMS into a “ next generation biopharma company” (Would somebody please write me and explain what that means)???? I suspect that BMS employees will be receiving “pink slips” after Labor Day.

This has been a devastating week for the NJ-based pharmaceutical industry. First, Teva announced last week that it will buy Montvale NJ-based Barr Pharmaceuticals and then earlier this week Roche issued a press release indicating that it will move its corporate headquarters from Nutley NJ to South San Francisco (Genentech’s headquarters) by 2010. The impending layoffs at BMS coupled with job freezes and downsizing at other NJ pharma companies like Schering Plough and Merck may signal the beginning of the end of New Jersey’s status as the “nation’s medicine chest.”

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (forget New Jersey)!

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According to apost at Pharmalot, rumor has it that Pfizer will lay off a number of chemists at its main R&D facility in Groton, Connecticut as early as next Fall The rumor supposedly began at an R&D blog run by a former Pfizer employee (always a reliable source for inside information). 

M y colleague Ed Silverman who runs Pharmalot contacted Pfizer about the rumor and received this response “A leading R&D organization must evolve, continue to build on its strengths, capture competitive advantage wherever possible and be realistic about what it will take to return Pfizer to growth. What I can assure you is that if and when there are organizational changes, those decisions are never taken lightly. Our guiding principle is that colleagues hear about important Pfizer news from company leadership first and are treated with the utmost respect.” In other words, Pfizer will likely be laying off more employees in the very near future.

Hat tip to Ed!

Until next time…

Good Luck, Good Job Hunting and Happy 4^th of July!!!!!

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The Avandia debacle is still ravaging the employee ranks at GlaxoSmithKline especially at its Research Triangle Park, North Carolina and in Philadelphia locations. According to a post at Pharmalot, the UK-based drug manufacturer is cutting as many as 350 jobs (2.0% of its workforce) at both locations. This represents an almost 40% reduction in drug discovery and development activities that take place at both sites.

These cuts come after GSK closed a factory and drastically cut its sales force late last year. To make matters worse (particularly for those folks who lost their jobs) GSK purchased an early-stage drug discovery company called Sirtris Pharmaceuticals for about $720 million earlier this year. Clearly, company executives have more faith in external rather than internal drug discovery at GSK.

The saga continues……

Until next time

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (forget North Carolina)!!!!!

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Minnesota-based Medtronic, Inc., one of the world’s largest medical devices companies, announced  that it was cutting about 1,100 jobs; 350 of which will be in Minnesota. This is the first layoff at the medical devices manufacturer in over 5 years. According to a press release, slightly over a third of the layoffs will come from the company’s local operations, which has about 8,000 employees. The overall effect of the reorganization will be relatively small—affecting roughly 3% of the company’s worldwide workforce of 39, 500.

Medtronic attributes the realignment (not restructuring according to company executives) to slumping sales of its spinal and cardiac devices. Accordingly, the company’s cardiac rhythm and neuroscience businesses along with local operations will bear the brunt of the job cuts.

It looks as though the entire life sciences sector is under assault. Belt yourself in—it’s going to be a rough ride for the foreseeable future!

Thanks to Ed at Pharmalot for the heads-up!

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (are there any left?)!!!!!

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As I mentioned in previous posts, things are simply not going Merck’s way. Merck has been battered in the past several months by the Singular flap, precipitous drops in Vytorin and Zetia sales and, most recently, FDA’s rejection of its follow-up Cordaptive anti-cholesterol drug. This has left the drug maker with little choice but to cut an additional 1,200 jobs from its rapidly shrinking US sales force.

The cuts, announced yesterday, are in addition to a companywide reorganization that began in 2005 which resulted in the elimination of approximately 8,100 positions. As of last December, Merck had 59,800 employees worldwide—soon to be 58,600 give or take a few employees!

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting???????

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Eli Lilly & Co. announced today that it will eliminate 500 jobs at its manufacturing facility in Indianapolis, IN. The cuts will affect sites that manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients for Lilly’s insulin products Humalog® and Humulin® and its osteoporosis medicine Forteo®.

Lilly is offering incentive packages for those employees who voluntarily leave the company. The company has already reduced its global headcount by twelve percent or about 5,500 people since 2004.

Times are tough and getting tougher each day in pharma land. Buckle up–its going to be a rough ride for jobseekers in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (avoid Indianapolis, who wants to be a Hoosier anyway?)

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I happened upon a Sunday morning talk show yesterday where one of the guests was discussing strategies that employees ought to adopt to keep their jobs in a recessionary economy. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, the US economy lost 63,000 jobs last month; another bit of evidence that we are sliding into an unavoidable recession. 

The talk show guest posited that only those employees who were able to quickly adapt to rapidly changing corporate/business environments would keep their jobs; the other less adaptable employees would find themselves jobless. Call me crazy, but his analysis sounded eerily similar to Darwin’s principle of natural selection or “survival of the fittest”–only those members of a population who were able to adapt (through mutations in Darwin’s case)  to changing environmental conditions will survive; the other less adaptable members will perish. Imagine that, using a recessionary economy to illustrate one of the fundamental principles of Darwin’s theory of evolution–how cool is that?

Here are some insights into how to keep your job during a recession when many companies are unstable and in flux. First, employees who work at financially-troubled companies must embrace the changes frequently instituted by management whether or not they agree with them. Invariably, there will be a cadre of employees who openly and publicly criticize the “new corporate policies”–these will likely be the employees who are demoted or “right-sized” out of the company.  In Darwinian terms, these employees are unable to adapt to change and they will either be eliminated or their standing in the population (company) will be diminished.  On the other hand, the employees who are able to embrace change will not lose their jobs and will likely be able to maintain or improve their standing in the population (company).  In other words, adaptable employees have a selective, competitive advantage over unadaptable ones which will allow them to survive and flourish in their new environment. Second, it is probably not wise during periods of corporate upheaval, for mid-level managers or employees to tout their past accomplishments or remind management about their worth to the company. In times of change, management embraces individuals with forward-looking ideas (to facilitate change) not those who are rooted in the past and are invested in antiquated corporate policies and practices. Again, only those employees who adapt will be able to survive and compete in their new corporate environment.  Finally, as a science educator, it is always exhilarating and exciting to find new ways to teach Darwin’s Theory (sic) of Evolution so that it makes sense to lay audiences. Maybe watching Sunday morning talk shows isn’t a waste of time after all!!!!

Until next time… 

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (adapt)!!!!!!!!!

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Germany’s GPC Biotech announced another round of job cuts as it tries to regroup after its failure to win US approval of its experimental prostate cancer drug satraplatin.

The company said that this latest restructuring will sharpen its focus on oncology clinical development efforts and further reduce costs to extend its cash reserves to cover three years of operating expenses. The restructuring is mainly focused on GPC’s early-stage research activities in Munich and will result in 38 job losses. The remaining work force will be 14 in Munich and 49 in Princeton, New Jersey. These latest cuts come after an announcement in November that the firm was slashing its workforce by over 100.

A GPC Biotech spokesperson also announced that the company is discontinuing internal development of the 1D09C3 monoclonal antibody, which is in Phase I clinical trials for relapsed/refractory B-cell lymphomas. However, RGB-286638, a broad-spectrum cell cycle kinase inhibitor, is expected to enter the clinic within the next six months. 

Things are looking pretty dicey at GPC Biotech.

Until next time….

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

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Astra Zeneca and Sanofi-Aventis announced job cuts today that will take place in the UK and Germany.

AstraZeneca says it plans to cut more than 300 jobs at its research and development hub at Alderley Park near Wilmslow England, 60 more than unions had feared.

The company, one of the biggest employers in Cheshire, said last week that it was examining its global R&D structure, prompting trade unions to claim that 244 jobs were likely to go at Alderley Park - its largest site for research - which employs more than 3,500. The majority of those affected at Alderley Park work on R&D into respiratory conditions, while there will be a smaller number of job losses from the cardio-vascular team.

Sanofi Aventis plans to eliminate 380 sales and marketing jobs in Germany, one-fifth of the total, because of difficult market conditions, a company spokesperson said. Sanofi Aventis currently employs 1,900 sales and marketing personnel in Germany. The company has 10,000 employees in the country.

The cuts will be made through a voluntary departure plan and retirements, the spokesperson said, citing difficulties in obtaining reimbursements, competition from generic drugs, and falling prices as reasons for the cuts.

The spokesman declined to comment on German press reports which said Sanofi Aventis's sales in Germany fell 8 per cent last year.

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According to posts by my colleague Ed Silverman over at Pharmalot, BMS announced today that it would cut 4,300 employees or approximately 10% of its workforce by 2010 in an effort to control costs and keep its stock afloat. The company also announced that it was selling its Medical Imaging business and would considering selling its Convatec (medical devices) and Mead Johnson (consumer products) divisions to a buyer(s) for the right price. In addition, the drug maker announced plans to close plants in Puerto Rico and Panama. The Park Avenue headquarters in New York will also shrink as fewer floors will be occupied. Finally, BMS wants to reduce the number of brands in its portfolio by 60 percent between 2007 and 2011 and reduce the number of manufacturing plants by more than half by the end of 2010. These moves are expected to save the company approximately $1.5 billion.

BMS has long been considered a takeover target. However, with Plavix losing patent protection in a few years and Erbitux losing ground in the anti-cancer market there may not be enough left for an acquisition or merger. Only time will tell.

What a mess ex-CEO Peter Dolan created for the company. So it goes….

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (not in New Jersey)!!!!

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Ed Silverman who runs the  Pharmalot blog reported that Novartis is slated to cut about 1,200 jobs to save the company about $230 million a year.  According to the post at Pharmalot, Novartis will let 240 employees go at its US- based headquartersin Hanover, New Jersey and eliminate over 1,000 full time and contract sales representatives from its workforce.  Also reported was that Novartis is planning to create a biologics division within the company.  I find this extremely interesting because Novartis already has a strong footprint in the biologics biz  via its wholly-owned subsidiary Sandoz, which is one of the market leaders in the follow-on biologics aka biosimilar sector.

I guess having a biologics division is de rigueur these days if you are a big pharma company.  I am still wondering why it took so long for all of these high paid pharmaceutical executives to figure out that biotechnology was the next  big thing?  You would think that after 30 years, they would get the hint.  But then gain these are some of the same people who brought us Vioxx, Avandia, Exubera and ...go ahead ....pick your favorite.

Until next time....

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

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Monster Worldwide, the company that runs the largest job board site Monster.com, quietly announced three weeks ago that is was laying off about 800 workers or approximately 15% of its workforce.

Monster Worldwide Inc. said mounting legal expenses associated with defending a growing U.S. government probe of its stock options grants practices were the reason for the job cuts.

The layoffs will mostly be in non-sales jobs in North America, Monster said.

The company also plans to streamline functions such as human resources and finance, Monster said.

It is not a harbinger of good things to come when the largest site on the web dedicated to helping individuals find employment downsizes its workforce to cut costs!

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting

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