Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Wyeth Lays Off Another 1,200 Employees

The drugmaker last Friday notified employees that still more jobs are going, a Wyeth spokesman confirms. This follows an announcement last month that 1,240 sales positions would be eliminated as part of what Wyeth execs are calling ‘Project Impact.’
The moves come as Wyeth grapples with various problems. Although the FDA recently approved the Pristiq antidepressant, the drugmaker has otherwise run into one setback after another in winning permission to market other drugs. Over the past year, the FDA has bounced a drug, demanded more data or a new patient study. Meanwhile, Wyeth expects generic competition for the Protonix heartburn med, one of its biggest sellers with sales of $1.9 billion.
Prior to the cutbacks, Wyeth execs acknowledged plans to eliminate 4 percent of its global workforce of appoximately 50,000 people by mid-year and 6 percent by year’s end. The latest cuts were made among employees “in all capacities,” the spokesman says, while declining to confirm that the Fort Dodge animal health business was spared. As we have already pointed out, 141 jobs were eliminated at Wyeth’s Pearl River, New York, plant as part of the latest round of layoffs.

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