Two contract manufacturers plan triple-digit job cuts, with a combination of layoffs and voluntary buyouts. Contract Pharmaceuticals is winding down its Buffalo, NY, plant, purchased from Bristol-Myers Squibb ($BMY) in 2005. By the end of the year, another 128 workers will be laid off. Meanwhile, United Drug plans 150 job cuts at a plant in Ireland as part of a recently announced streamlining program.
In Buffalo, Contract plans two stages of layoffs. Forty-seven jobs will be cut at the end of November, and the remaining employees will be let go by year's end. As Outsourcing-Pharma points out, these cuts represent three-fourths of the plant's remaining 161 employees.
The Buffalo operations will be consolidated with a Contract plant in Ontario. At the time the Buffalo plant was slated for closure, 260 employees worked there. The company had bought the 415,000-square-foot plant from BMS thinking it could attract enough business to justify the expansion, but the faltering economy interfered with those plans, according to executives.
United Drug attributes its cuts to government decisions to cut healthcare spending. The CMO said austerity moves have significantly pinched sales, forcing it to shed jobs and make other streamlining moves; it announced plans to restructure earlier this month.
"We are embarking on a business transformation program in order to remain competitive in the market," a spokesperson told Outsourcing-Pharma. "Up to 150 full- and part-time staff may be impacted by the changes." The exact number of employees cut depends on the outcome of United Drug's voluntary redundancy program and on its ability to move staffers to posts elsewhere in the business.
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