Boehringer to slash 600 jobs in native Germany
pharmafile | September 24, 2014 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | AMNOG, Boehringer, Germany, Novartis, cuts, mergers, staff
Boehringer Ingelheim is to cut around 600 of its staff in Germany as part of a drive to reduce costs in in its native land by €450 million ($580 million).
The privately-owned German firm says it is being forced into axing staff because of both healthcare budget cuts in the US and the effects of the restrictive AMNOG drug pricing scheme in Germany, which is squeezing sales of Boehringer’s medicines.
The company, which markets the big-selling anticoagulant Pradaxa (dabigatran) and respiratory drug Spiriva, says in a statement that it plans to cut between 500 and 600 jobs in Germany by the end of 2016, but is seeking to avoid forced redundancies.
Of its global workforce of 47,500, the group employs about 14,000 in Germany. The news was widely expected after the plans were first revealed in German newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in August, although this is the first official confirmation on the cuts.
The company is not alone in feeling the pinch of a tough global economic environment, although many firms are making swingeing reductions as the result of new mergers.
In July, US-based biotech firm Amgen announced it would be making 2,900 layoffs, coming shortly after its 2013 acquisition of Onyx Pharmaceuticals.
In the same month Allergan also said it would cut 1,500 jobs in a bid to deflect the advances of its Canadian suitor Valeant’s $53 billion hostile takeover attempt.
Swiss major Novartis also said at the beginning of the year that it would be making 500 job cuts in Switzerland, but then a few months later announced an additional 4,000 jobs would go across its global drug business.
AstraZeneca has seen the biggest cull in recent years after saying it would axe 5,050 job cuts last year, whilst then adding another 550 to that number in February.
Ben Adams
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