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I am attending the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in sunny Phoenix, AZ where I will be providing career development guidance to undergraduate and graduate students. Ironically, given the dismal job prospects in the life sciences industry for entry level employees, I will be giving a talk on how to find a job!  Last year's meeting in Orlando was a great one and I expect this one to be just as good.

While I am on the road, it doesn't mean that I won't be keeping track of the goings on back in my neck of the woods. To that end, Merck announced today that it will keep Schering Plough's corporate headquaters in Kenilworth, NJ open. Merck announced the decision today after closing on the $7 billion deal yesterday. This is good news for the NJ residents who currently work at the Kenilworth site. New Jersey has been extremely hard hit by all of the pharmaceutical layoffs in the past few years. Unemployment continues to rise and things will not get any better since conservative Republican Chris Christie was elected governor on Tuesday (he plans on laying off massive numbers of state employees) once he takes office in 2010.

Johnson and Johnson, on the other hand, announced that it was closing research & development facilities in Radnor and Chesterbrook, PA and consolidating those operations at the company's Spring House site. The New Brunswick, N.J., company would not say how many jobs are at those locations now or how many would remain in Spring House after the move, which is to be completed by 2012. These closure come shortly after JnJ announced earlier this week that is was elimating ca 8,200 employees or roughly seven percent of its global workforce.

Let's hope that things begin to improve soon. 

Hat tip to the Pharmalot blog!

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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Pfizer, the world’s largest drug maker, announced on Thursday that it is unveiling a new program that will let people who have lost their jobs and health insurance to keep taking Pfizer medications — for free, and for up to a year. The company will provide more than 70 of its prescription drugs ranging from Viagra to Lipitor at no costs to unemployed and uninsured Americans who lost their jobs since Jan. 1 and have been taking Pfizer drugs for me than three months. It is not clear how much Pfizer will spend on the program and whether or not costs will be capped.

The announcement comes amid massive job losses caused by the recession and a campaign in Washington to rein in health care costs and extend coverage. The move could earn Pfizer some goodwill in that debate after long being a target of critics of drug industry prices and sales practices. The program also likely will help keep those patients loyal to Pfizer brands. Don't be surprised if other pharmaceutical companies announce similar program over the next few weeks.

Pfizer and the rest of the drug industry wants is trying to have a voice in the debate over how to overhaul the U.S. health care system, partly by joining in a pledge this week to help hold down inflation of health costs. In the mean time, drug companies have been raising prices on their drugs, partly to offset declines in revenue as the global recession reduces the number of prescriptions people can afford to fill.

Pfizer ought to be commended on the program and its concern for the health and well being of unemployed and uninsured Americans. However, it is important to point out that this is little more than a high profile, marketing campaign designed to improve the image of drug makers. More important, it is the first public acknowledgement that drug makers are willing to engage legislators in discussions about how to reform healthcare to reduce costs and cut expenditures. 

What really is at stake here is whether or not the US government will begin regulating drug prices as part of a comprehensive healthcare reform package. As many of you may know, the US government, unlike most other governments in the world, cannot negotiate or set prescription drugs prices. Not surprisingly, the US prescription drug market is the largest and most profitable in the world. It will be interesting to see how the US healthcare reform discussion unfolds—clearly a lot is at stake for the American prescription drug industry.

Until next time...

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

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According to a recent report from the consulting firm Ernst and Young, cost cutting and downsizing are no longer the primary objectives for most pharmaceutical companies. Instead, they are mulling over the new challenges that universal health care may bring and how to better reach consumers in emerging markets. 

In a recent interview, Carolyn Buck Luce, one of the paper’s co-authors said “in our previous report, cost containment was one of the most important initiatives. In this report we found more of a balanced approach where optimizing cost was [just] one the many objectives. Only 40 percent of the executives said optimizing costs was their most important initiative, compared to a similar study in 2007 where 92 percent of those surveyed ranked cost reduction as their main initiative. In the latest survey, 66 percent of executives said the most important strategic initiative was reinvigorating the R&D pipeline, while 40 percent said expanding into new markets and restructuring their marketing and sales programs to become more customer-centric were their main areas of focus. “

One of the most telling quotes in the piece is: “There was an awful lot of focus on costs a year ago, when companies realized there was a lot of fat in their companies and a lot of opportunity to cut costs.” Does that mean that pharma really didn’t have to lay off tens of thousands of employees over the past year? It kind of makes you wonder doesn’t it? And, if you believe that pharma is truly finished with downsizing--would you be interested in a great deal on some land in Florida?

Until next time…

Good Luck and Try to Hang On to Your Job!!!!!!!!

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