It has emerged that 550 pharmaceutical jobs will be eliminated at AstraZeneca’s U.S. headquarters in Delaware.
About 550 of company’s scientists and support personnel in Wilmington will lose their jobs by the end of 2011.
The company is reorganising its global research and development operations and eliminating about 1,800 R&D jobs as part of a previously announced cost-cutting plan.
AstraZeneca also said it will close research sites in the UK and Sweden, and that about 3,500 R&D jobs will be affected as part of a plan announced in January to cut 8,000 jobs, or 12 percent of its work force, by 2014.
According to the AP, the termination of psychiatric laboratory research in Delaware represents about one-third of the company’s R&D work force in the state.
Early-stage discovery research will cease at the company’s U.S. facility in Wilmington, Del., and it will close its facility in Lund, Sweden. In the U.K., Charnwood and a smaller facility, acquired with Kudos, in Cambridge, will be shuttered. Pharmaceutical development work at the Avon facility will also end, and AstraZeneca said it aims to sell its Arrow Therapeutics business in London.
AstraZeneca is ending discovery research 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.
“We have made real strides in improving our efficiency in recent years, but there is a continuing need to adapt our organisation in anticipation of future challenges,” said executive vice president of development, Anders Ekblom. “I am also acutely aware that these proposed changes will have a significant impact on our people, and we are committed to providing support to them.”
Earlier this week, AstraZeneca decided to close a research centre in the UK, resulting in a loss of up to 1,200 pharmaceutical jobs. The Loughborough site is expected to close by the end of 2011.
According to a report filed by bbc.co.uk
Paul Fileman, of Loughborough Chamber of Trade and Commerce, said: “It could be as much as £2m taken out of the local economy and a lot of the people who are affected are very bright individuals with very specialised job roles. They’re going to potentially be looking for new jobs away from Loughborough.”
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