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For the past year or so, I have been focusing on the downsizing and layoffs taking place at big pharmaceutical companies. The unprecedented size and scope of these massive layoffs have overshadowed the downsizing and job loss taking place at small to mid-size public and private biopharmaceutical companies. In contrast with most fully-integrated vertical pharmaceutical companies that are flush with cash, most biotech companies—even the likes of Amgen, Genentech, Gilead and others—don’t have the cash reserves to maintain operations in a down economy or when a drug candidate fails in clinical development. This coupled with the lack of venture and private equity capital has been causing biopharmaceutical employees to lose sleep in recent months.

Over the past few days, two CA-based biopharmaceutical companies announced major layoffs. The first, San Jose-based Xenoport, announced that it plans on cutting its 222 person workforce by 50% over the next few months. According to company executives, the layoffs are necessary because the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) failed to grant approval to its lead drug candidate Horizant, a treatment for restless leg syndrome. This will allow the company to annually save about $15.6 million and focus its development efforts on other products that are in Phase II clinical development. 

San Francisco-based Exelixis today announced that it would cut about 40% of its workforce or 270 employees to focus on development of its late stage drug candidates. The biotechnology company, which expects to reduce its 2011 cash expenditures by about $90 million, said it would focus on the development of its anti-cancer drugs XL184, XL147 and XL765. These layoffs are occurring less than a year after the company announced a potential $1.0 billion deal with Sanofi-Aventis in which Sanofi invested $140 million upfront to license two of its oncology drug candidates.

Things are also not going well for the numerous small to midsize biotechnology companies in the Seattle area. According to Xconomy, a company that tracks layoffs in and around Seattle, the region has shed 4,500 biopharmaceutical industry jobs since 2008.

Finally, BNET compiled a top biotech layoff list for 2009. The notables that made the list are shown below.

1. Sepracor (530). The layoffs represented 20 percent of Sepracor’s workforce, and another 410 contract sales reps also got the axe. The restructuring apparently worked and Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma the company later in 2009.
2. Allergan (460). This represented a five percent reduction in the company’s workforce.
3. Genmab (300).  Arzerra (ofatumumab) the company’s leukemia drug won FDA approval a week before layoffs were announced (go figure). But Genmab wanted to cut manufacturing and late-stage clinical work to refocus on antibody discovery.
4. Oscient Pharmaceuticals (280). Oscient cut about 100 jobs in February, 2009 to entice acquisition partners. When that didn’t work, the firm cut another 180 in June as it dumped the sales force for its two marketed products. Cornerstone Therapeutics later picked up Oscient’s antibiotic Factive during bankruptcy.
5. Amylin Pharmaceuticals (200). After cutting 340 jobs at the end of 2008 amid declining diabetes drug sales and regulatory delays, Amylin eliminated 200 sales reps in mid-2009.

While these represent the largest layoffs that occurred in 2009, thousands of other biopharmaceutical employees also lost their jobs.  If the life sciences sector is the part of the economy that has been relatively unscathed during the economic downturn, imagine what life must be like for employees in other sectors that have been hard hit!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting ????

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Ed Silverman, who runs the Pharmalot blog,reported today that AstraZeneca provided more details about its plan to layoff 8,000 employees or 12% of its workforce by 2014. 

According to the post, the company will R&D programs in thrombosis; acid reflux; ovarian and bladder cancers; systemic scleroderma; schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety; hepatitis C and vaccines (other than respiratory syncytial virus and influenza).

The company will shutter research facilities throughout the UK and Sweden and shed about 3,500 R&D jobs. About 550 jobs will be eliminated at AstraZeneca’s US headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware; adding to the massive numbers of unemployed pharmaceutical workers in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware region. The company is also looking for a buyer for its Arrow Therapeutics business.

AstraZeneca joins a growing number of big pharma companies that are jettisoning internal R& D programs in favor of licensing and merger and acquisition deals to sure up drug discovery pipelines. The lack of innovation in small molecule drug discovery and the loss in 2011 of patent protection for some of the industry’s largest blockbuster drug franchises is forcing big pharma companies to eliminate or outsource most of their R&D functions and capabilities to cut costs.  

I wish I could say that things will get better. But, the shift in the business model that has guided big pharma for close to 100 years is likely to be a permanent one. Now is the time to begin to consider alternative career paths!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (“Go West young man/man!”)

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Times are tough in the financially-struggling pharmaceutical industry and seemingly getting tougher.

First, Bristol-Myer Squibb (BMS) announced last week that it will freeze salaries but not cut yearly performance bonuses for its employees. One week later, Johnson & Johnson (J&J)—a company known not to be upstaged or outdone by a competitor—is planning on cutting the yearly performance-bonuses for 38% of its workforce and will freeze the salaries of certain other employees.

While BMS publicly announced its salary freeze, J&J plans were uncovered in an internal announcement and other company documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal. According to the Journal article, “The health-care giant told employees Jan. 25 that it is making the moves to standardize compensation across its various businesses and regions, thereby making it easier for its workers to move around within the company. In the U.S., the changes will bring bonus targets in line with market levels, one document said.”

Interestingly, J&J hasn't yet reported its CEO, William Weldon’s compensation for last year. In 2009, Mr. Weldon turned down a salary raise. His total compensation in 2008 fell 4.1% from the year before to $29.4 million, according to the most recent regulatory filing.

The salary freeze and bonus cuts help to explain why a good friend and lifelong J&J employee (25 years and counting) wasn’t too keen on the company during a visit earlier this week. During a conversation, in which I unknowingly lauded J&J’s treatment of its employees, my friend quipped “Looks can be deceiving; J&J is like every other big corporation. People really don’t matter—it’s all about P&L”

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!

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According to an article that appeared in the Indian publication The Hindu Business Line, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is set to increase the size of its Indian marketing and sales force to better support the sale of vaccines and other specialty products. A company executive said that GSK will add another 200 people to its 2,250 member sales and marketing team.

GSK is repositioning itself to be more competitive in developing and emerging markets like India, China, Brazil and elsewhere. The announcement to increase the size of its workforce in India comes only a couple of weeks after the company announced massive global layoffs that would affect at least 4,000 GSK employees.

Hat tip to Ed at Pharmalot!

Until next time...

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

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While ‘women in the workplace’ is no longer a new or novel concept, there are still differences in the way women and men are viewed and treated at work. Lauri Buckley at Job Profiles alerted me to an interesting article that they prepared entitled “The Gender Gap: 10 Surprising Stats on Women in the Workplace."

Listed below are some startling stats about women in the workplace. 

1.  Women comprise 46% of the total U.S. labor force. With almost half of the workforce being women, female employees aren't exactly a rarity. For most women today, getting a job is an expected part of life. This is a big change from past decades. In 1900, fewer than 20% of women participated in the labor market while today the number is around 75% and growing.
2. Women make only 77.5 cents for every dollar that men earn. This figure comes from data on the 2003 census. Despite this gap, many economists feel that the gap between pay for men and women is due to different personal choices men and women make about personal fulfillment, child rearing and hours at work. Whichever you choose to believe, the reality is that the gap is slowly but surely closing as women become increasingly educated and dual income families become the norm, but this isn't much consolation to those who feel discriminated against today.
3. The more education a woman has, the greater the disparity in her wages. This certainly doesn't mean women should shy away from professional positions, but they should be aware that they may have to battle harder for equal pay. Women in professional specialty occupations were found to earn just 72.7% of what men in the same position earned, and women in upper level executive, administrative and managerial occupations earned even less at 72.3%. If you compare this against the average of 77.5%, the numbers speak for themselves, and this graphic from the New York Times makes it even easier to see.
4. Women may work longer to receive the promotions that provide access to higher pay. One example provided by the National Center for Education Statistics shows that women often have to work three years longer in a teaching position to be promoted to a principal than their male counterparts. Some studies suggest that this is because women and men adapt different strategies when it comes to management and pursuing promotions, yet other studies connect it less to work and more to gender-based biases.
5. Women business owners employ 35% more people than all the Fortune 500 companies combined. If you're like most people, you don't picture a woman when you think about a business owner. Yet there are about 9.1 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., a number that comprises nearly 40% of all businesses. The idea that women don't make good managers just doesn't hold up when you look at these kinds of numbers, with women managing a large number of employees and making healthy profits while doing so.
6. Women account for 46% of the labor force, but 59% of workers making less than $8 an hour. What does it mean? It means that many women are taking on jobs that pay well under a living wage. With nearly 16% of U.S. households having women who are divorced, widowed or never married as the sole providers, this leaves many women at a distinct disadvantage and struggling to make ends meet as they dominate jobs in low paying fields.
7. Only 53% of employers provide at least some replacement pay during periods of maternity leave. Despite the fact that the arrival of a child means extra bills and expenses, many employers don't provide women with any benefits if they to leave work temporarily to have a child. While there is no law requiring companies to offer paid maternity leave, considering it is an issue that primarily affects women, it's certainly a blow to their income potential and ability to care for their families and themselves.
8. Four in ten businesses worldwide have no women in senior management. This shouldn't be a surprise given the way many countries feel about women in the workplace. Here in the United States, however, women still feel the stress of trying to break into upper management, with 93% of the 439 senior women executives surveyed by Korn/Ferry International in 1992 feeling that a glass ceiling for women still existed. Yet new studies report that women outnumber men as managers in fields like human resources, health administration and education--perhaps stemming from reports that many businesses have seen a direct financial impact from hiring women.
9. Women earned less than men in 99% of all occupations. In virtually every field that women choose to enter, they can expect to earn less over their lifetime than their male counterparts. This means that over 47 years of full-time work, this gap amounts to an estimated loss in wages for women of $700,000 for high school graduates, $1.2 million for college grads, and $2 million for professional school grads--a staggering amount.
10. Minority women fare the worst when it comes to equal pay. African-American women earn 64 cents to every dollar earned by white men and Hispanic women just 52 cents per dollar. Whether it's attitudes about race or gender that are at play, it's clear that something needs to be done to level the playing field.

While these interesting statistics may be new to a lot of men, women have long known about the biases and inequities that they face in the workplace. The facts presented in the article suggest that while women have come a long way in the past 40 years, there is still a lot of work that must be done to achieve parity between women and men in the workplace.

Hat tip to Job Profiles!

Until next time...

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

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Johnson & Johnson announced today it would eliminate as many as 8,200 jobs, or 7% of its work force, to help the company cope with what it expects will be a slow economic recovery amid damped demand for drugs, medical devices and consumer products. J&J employs about 117, 000 workers globally. While the job cuts will be global, many losing their jobs will be outside of the US. 

J & J joins a growing list of pharmaceutical and life sciences companies that have announced new layoffs. Pfizer Inc., the world’s biggest drugmaker, plans to fire 19,000 workers following its acquisition of Wyeth and had already cut 10,000 positions since 2007. J&J began firing as many as 4,400 employees from its pharmaceutical and stent divisions in late 2007. Finally, Merck recently announced that it will be eliminating 16,000 workers after its merger with Schering Plough closes later this year.

J&J’s announcement is more bad news for New Jersey which is still reeling from the earlier loss of tens of thousands of pharmaceutical and life sciences jobs.

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (forget New Jersey)

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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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Over the past ten years or so, pundits have been warning that the US is losing its competitive edge and that it is no longer the world’s leading nation when it comes to innovation in science and technology. Measuring national competitiveness and innovation is very tricky business and until now, most of evidence to support these claims has been anecdotal. According to an article in today’s New York Times, a report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation suggests that the US ranked sixth among 40 countries and regions based on 16 indicators that measure innovation and competitiveness including venture capital investment, numbers of per capita researchers, research spending and educational achievement. 

While the results of Foundation study may be troubling (if you are a US citizen), another recent study conducted by the World Economic Forum found that America ranked first in innovation and global competition. However the forum’s report was based entirely on opinion survey data.  Like the forum report, a study conducted by the Rand Corporation last year, also found that “the US was not in any imminent danger of losing its competitive advantage in science and technology.” The use of the word “imminent” is perhaps the most telling aspect of the Rand Corporation’s conclusion about American competitiveness.

The US lost ground to much smaller countries like Sweden, Finland, Taiwan, Singapore and also to one of it's main competitors, China.  Unlike the US, all of these countries are pursuing government-sponsored initiatives designed to promote innovation and global competitiveness. Some of the elements of these initiatives include education, workforce development training, intellectual property protection and immigration. Surprisingly, results from the foundation report (adjusted for population and size of each economy) showed that the US ranked sixth in venture capital investment (Sweden was first); fifth in corporate research and development spending (Japan was number one) and fourth in the number of science and technology researchers (again Sweden was first). Over all, Singapore ranked first in innovation and competitiveness. As some of you may know, Singapore--for the past 10 years--has heavily invested in the life sciences and has managed to induce some of world’s leading bioscientists to immigrate.

One of the main recommendations of the report suggests that the federal government ought to follow the lead of the individual states, many of which developed state government-sponsored programs designed to attract investment, talent and improve the work force skills of  local would be employees. Further, the report specifically recommends that the federal government offers tax breaks and incentives to induce American companies to innovate at home rather than outsource R&D activities abroad. Some of these incentives could include tax research tax credits  and increased federal funding or corporate tax breaks for workforce development programs.

Finally, one of the most shocking statistics that I heard in President Obama’s speech to Congress last evening was that 50% of American students drop out of high school and over 50% of college students never complete their education. This begs the question: How can America expect to remain competitive when a majority of its population is less educated than the rest of the developed world? 

A past commitment to education is what propelled the US to become a world leader in innovation and competitiveness.  To regain its past status as an innovator, the US must overhaul and vastly improve is primary, secondary and post secondary education system. This is something that cannot wait—the future of American depends on it!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting ( give teaching a shot)

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 Merck announced today that as part of its ongoing restructuring plan to cut costs it will eliminate approximately 7,200 positions — 6,800 active employees and 400 vacancies — across all areas of the Company worldwide by the end of 2011.  This amounts to a 12 percent reduction in the company’s workforce. About 40 percent of the total reductions will occur in the United States.  To streamline management layers across the Company, Merck will reduce its total number of senior and mid-level executives by approximately 25 percent.  These positions are in addition to the 10,400 positions.  As of Sept. 30, Merck has approximately 56,700 employees. In addition to the layoffs, Merck will close three research facilities; one in Tsukuba, Japan; another in Pomezia, Italy and one in Seattle Washington by the end of 2009.

Merck expects the 2008 cutbacks to save the company $3.8 billion to $4.2 billion over the next five years. BioJobBlog reported several weeks ago that Merck had been quietly laying off employees since September. I suspect that today’s announcement comes as no surprise to employees who still work at the Company.

New Jersey once dubbed “America’s medicine chest” is starting to look less full!

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting

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On the heels of yesterday’s announcement that it wants to buy Genentech, Roche, in a surprise move, announced today that it will move its Nutley, NJ-based US corporate headquarters to California. According to a report, research and development activities in oncology and metabolism at the Nutley site will be expanded. However, the company will consolidate all Nutley-based finance and information-technology operations and close manufacturing facilities on the site by 2010. It is not clear how many of Roche’s 3,240 New Jersey employees will be affected by the proposed move to South San Francisco. Suffice it to say, more than a few Roche employees are likely to lose their jobs after the company’s headquarters heads west.

Once dubbed the”nation's medicine chest”, New Jersey has steadily been losing pharmaceutical jobs since 1990 when 20% of all US pharmaceutical jobs were in NJ—at present 13.7% of  American pharmaceutical jobs reside in NJ. It has been a long, slow burn for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology workforce in the Garden State.

The Roche announcement comes as several other New Jersey drug makers, including Schering-Plough and Johnson & Johnson's Ortho Biotech unit, have been laying off workers because of the economic downturn and tough times in the industry. It also comes several days after Barr Pharmaceuticals, headquartered in Montvale, announced that it is being acquired for $7.5 billion by Israeli generics giant Teva.  

The growing scarcity of pharmaceutical and biotechnology jobs coupled with the highest property taxes in the US may cause a mass migration from the state. Not that there is anything wrong with that!!!!!!

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!

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Siemens, the German conglomerate that manufactures everything from locomotives to medical imaging devices, officially announced on Tuesday that it will be sacking 4% of it workforce or 16,750 employees. Although the company didn’t specify where all of the cut would be taking place—it is a global workforce reduction—a company spokesperson did indicate that 1,500 administrative jobs in its healthcare division would be eliminated and most of those jobs are in the US. Many of these cuts will likely take place in the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania)—not welcome news for the already battered pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries in the region.

While the cuts seem pretty substantial to most people (especially those Siemens employees who are losing their jobs) one company executive quipped “If you have 400,000 people on your payroll, cutting 17,000 is not that big a deal” — only if you aren’t one of the people who is losing a job.

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!

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Cambridge, MA-based Alkermes announced today that it is restructuring its operations following the termination by Eli Lilly and Company of its inhalable AIR Insulin program (Alkermes manufactured the inhaler delivery device). The company is reducing its workforce by approximately 150 employees and closing its AIR commercial manufacturing facility in Chelsea, MA. The company is taking these actions based on its current expectations of the financial impact of Lilly's termination of the AIR Insulin program.

The job cuts, effective this week, represent almost 18% of Alkermes’ total workforce. Employees affected by the restructuring will be eligible for a severance package that includes severance pay, continuation of benefits and outplacement services. The company expects cost savings from the restructuring in the range of $15 million to $20 million in fiscal 2009.

In other news from across the pond, the trade group, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), reported today that the UK pharmaceutical industry lost about 8.000 pharmaceutical jobs or about 10% of its workforce over the past three years. The ABPI asserts that there is a direct link between job cuts and changes to the British government’s pricing mechanisms for medicines. A spokesperson for the group said “Every time a new PPRS (Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme) comes into force there is a decline in the number of jobs”. Not surprisingly, the group is urging the government to not make any changes in the PPRS.

The UK pharmaceutical workforce has taken a number of big hits of late– Pfizer recently closed a manufacturing plant in Kent, while British drug makers AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline both announced substantial global job cuts many of which were located in Britain.

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!

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 A report on the state of the Massachusetts biotechnology industry suggests that global competition and shortages of trained workers might cause the state to loss its reputation as one of the world’s top life sciences cluster. The report points out that there simply aren’t enough trained workers to meet the growing demand from Massachusetts-based biotechnology companies-both because of a lack of adequate training programs and lack of interest from students.  

To help to remedy the situation, the study recommended that more job training programs ought to be created at two- and four-year state colleges and that Massachusetts should do more to encourage students to pursue careers in the life sciences. As usual, the report recommended that math and science education should be improved at the K-12 levels. Other suggestions included setting up a “summer bio camp” and launching an unpaid bioscience internship program.

Unfortunately, this report, which was prepared by Boston-based Mass Insight Corp and McKinsey & Co and was likely very expensive, is almost identical to other studies published over the past decade about ongoing workforce shortages in the life sciences industry. Like its predecessors, it contains the same tired and unimaginative recommendations that others have proposed to solve bioscience labor shortages. To learn more about some creative solutions to avert life sciences workforce shortages click here.

Despite what the experts and pundits would have you believe, the etiology of the workforce shortages in the life sciences industry is easy to decipher. Put simply, most universities and colleges don’t believe that job training or career development should be part of their academic initiatives or educational missions. Likewise, companies don’t feel that education or training should fall within their purview–according to industry executives, college and professional school graduates ought to be sufficiently prepared to enter the workforce after they complete their education.

Because neither academia nor industry wants to assume responsibility (financial or otherwise) to prepare or train students for careers in the life sciences, it should come as no surprise that there are workforce shortages in this industry. Although a number of federally-funded biotraining programs were initiated in the late 1990s, these programs were poorly promoted and are incapable of sustaining themselves without government support. Paradoxically, there are many more innovative, industry-focused biotechnology and bioscience training programs at the high school level as compared with the undergraduate and graduate levels. I suspect that many professors in undergraduate and graduate life sciences departments are more concerned about their own research programs than about the careers of their students. Go figure………!!!!!

There will continue to be workforce shortages in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical devices industry until either academia, industry or both claims ownership of bioscience training and career development.  I think that it time for academicians and industry professionals alike to put their heads together to solve this serious and ongoing problem. Failure to do so will result in the loss of America’s global dominance in the life sciences industry.

Until next time…

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

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