Teva Pharmaceuticals plans to remove 250 jobs at its CDMO unit over the next two years, Israeli business news outlet Globes reports.
The development comes as Teva remains in its search for a new owner for the API business, called Teva Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (TAPI), after revealing its intention to sell the division in January 2024.
The job reductions will mainly affect Teva’s site in Neot Hovav, an industrial zone near Beer Sheva, Israel, according to Globes. TAPI has 4,100 employees worldwide, according to the local news outlet, already down from about 4,300 when the planned divestiture was made public.
“The move is being carried out in full coordination and cooperation with employee representatives and the Histadrut, with a long-term view of strengthening the operational stability of the division in Israel,” TAPI said, as quoted by Globes. Histadrut, or the General Federation of Labor in Israel, is a trade union that touts itself as the largest and most influential economic organization in the country.
Fierce has reached out to Teva and did not receive a response by publication.
The ongoing war in Iran could add another wrinkle to TAPI’s sale. Conflicts in the Middle East and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have disrupted the movement of active pharmaceutical ingredients, and rising energy costs add financial pressure to shipping drugs. In March, Israeli missiles reportedly hit a factory by Tofigh Daru, a major pharma company in Tehran.
Both TAPI’s divestiture process and the intended layoffs will be overseen by new leadership. R. Ananthanarayanan, Ph.D., whom Teva brought on in 2023 to lead the API unit, will retire as CEO of TAPI and leave the company on July 3, 2026.
Layoffs at TAPI run in parallel to a broader restructuring initiative that Teva outlined last year with a goal to save about $700 million by 2027. Under that program, Teva said it will lay off around 8% of its 30,000 employees globally. At the time, TAPI was not part of the overhaul.
Historically known as a generics drugmaker, Teva has in recent years devoted more of its attention to innovative drugs. In the first quarter of 2026, its innovative brands—tardive dyskinesia treatment Austedo, migraine med Ajovy and long-acting schizophrenia therapy Uzedy—together grew revenues by 41% year over year in local currencies.
Meanwhile, the company’s application for a long-acting version of olanzapine for once-monthly treatment of schizophrenia is currently under FDA review.
In April, the Israeli pharma struck a deal to acquire Emalex Biosciences for $700 million upfront, bagging a dopamine D1 receptor antagonist that’s en route to an FDA submission for Tourette syndrome this year.