Roche confirms job cuts but confident pharma growth will return

Roche has provided the details of its restructuring initiative "toreshape its pharmaceuticals division for the future" by confirming that it will make 3,000 job cuts within the division over the next two-three years (Marketletter June 4). The main sites affected are Palo Alto and Nutley in the USA, Welwyn Garden City, UK, and Basel, Switzerland.

900 jobs are to be lost at Nutley, while 200 are set to go at Palo Alto. The remainder will go at Welwyn (700) and Basel (600), with the former seeing the end to all of its research activities and manufacturing operations. Roche stressed that this does not mean a cutback in its R&D programs, as projects underway at Welwyn will be transferred to other sites.

Clinical development at Palo Alto is to end and Roche added that it will make administrative cuts at its headquarters in Basel. William Burns, head of the company's pharmaceuticals division, said that while it is important to keep a close eye on cost structure, "we will also continue to work actively on strengthening our sales." Quite how this will be achieved is not clear and Mr Burns simply noted that Roche "will continue to rely on internally-generated growth, augmented, as in the past, by carefully-targeted licensing agreements, alliances and product acquisitions."