Novartis may axe 1,000 jobs in Diovan wake
pharmafile | January 23, 2014 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Sales and Marketing | Coartem, Diovan, Novartis, cuts
Novartis will shut down a plant in New York State that made heart drug Diovan and malaria treatment Coartem as it looks to help off-set a major decline in revenue.
The closing of the Swiss firm’s factory will affect 525 jobs said Eric Althoff, a spokesman for the company speaking to Bloomberg Industries.
Novartis may transfer some employees to other locations however, he added, meaning not all the jobs could be under threat.
This announcement comes in the same week that Novartis said it would also cut 500 ‘support jobs’ in its native Switzerland to “free up resources to hire employees to market new products this year”.
The reason for these swingeing cuts is the loss of blockbuster sales from blood pressure drug Diovan (valsartan) which lost US patent protection in 2012. Globally the drug brought in $5.7 billion in 2011 and peaked at $6 billion in 2010, before succumbing to generic pressure.
“Changes in our current portfolio, namely the loss of exclusivity of Diovan, have significantly reduced the future production demand on the Suffern site,” Novartis said in a statement. “The site’s future volumes would be significantly below the minimum required to operate it cost-effectively.”
The Basel, Switzerland-based firm will begin closing the factory in the second half of the year. The process may take two to three years to complete, it said.
This is not the first time Novartis has made large cuts, in early 2012 it announced it would slash 1,960 jobs in the US as preparation for the loss of Diovan. This seemingly was still not enough given this week’s additional announcement.
It also said late last year that it was cutting round 400 jobs at a key site in the South of England, a process that will start from the middle of this year.
Last year Novartis was forced to apologise to patients in Japan over the alleged manipulation of data in five trials of Diovan. Some researchers accused the firm of using internal staff to run several post-marketing clinical trials of the drug, a breach of independence rules.
Ben Adams
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