Company Shakeups

Pharma Layoffs: And so it begins

(Source: WSJHealthBlog)

And so it begins. Wyeth announced yesterday that it is laying off 1,200 members of its sales and marketing force, mostly from the Protonix ranks. The drug has been hit hard lately by generic competition.

I think ‘08 will be a banner year for pharma layoffs in particular, though it will be hard to beat the ~60,000 from 2003 to 2007 as the WSJ Health Blog has reported. I plan on keeping a log of all major layoff from here on.

10 major drugs lose patent protection this year. Merck’s Fosamax was first to go in early February and there are only more to come so we are bound to see tens of thousands of layoffs in 2008 as a result. After each layoff, there will be an update post with the current running total.

Theoretically Related Posts

• July 30, 2008 -- Wyeth and Elan in a World of Pain (0)
• June 17, 2008 -- Bapineuzumab Fails Trial (2)
• April 25, 2008 -- Astellas Pharma and CoMentis Sign $760M Alzheimer’s Deal (1)

© 2008 Pharmababble.