US Lay-Offs Follow Sterling Break Up

A total of 485 employees are to be laid off at a Sterling Winthrop research facility in Pennsylvania, USA. The lay-offs are being made by Sanofi, which acquired the SW unit from Eastman Kodak as part of its purchase of the Sterling Winthrop prescription drugs business (Marketletters passim), Hafslund Nycomed, which acquired Sterling's diagnostics imaging business from Sanofi shortly after the latter's acquisition of SW (Marketletters passim), and two divisions of Kodak, which is leasing the facility to Sanofi for one year.

A specific breakdown of the redundancies in relation to each company was not given, but a US spokesperson for Sanofi told the Marketletter that Sanofi is retaining 475 staff at the site, which was more than originally thought.

The majority of the redundancies will be among the basic discovery scientists and support staff. Sanofi has a basic discovery unit in France and does not need to run this operation in the USA.