After telegraphing its intentions several years back, Amneal Pharmaceuticals is getting ready to mothball one of its Long Island manufacturing plants.
As Amneal winds down operations at its oral solids site in Hauppauge, New York, the company has disclosed 13 job cuts planned to go into effect “on or about December 31, 2022,” according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notice in the state.
The plant employs a total 89 workers, according to the filing, with the remaining 76 staffers expected to continue to work through March 2023.
“The business will be restructuring operations of its Hauppauge facility and will be closing the location in March of 2023,” the notice continues. The employees are not represented by any union.
Fierce Pharma reached out to Amneal for comment about the plant closure, but the company did not respond by press time.
The layoffs appear to be part of a cost-cutting initiative Amneal first rolled out in 2018. In a recent form 10-K, the company said that as part of that plan, it expected to “reduce its headcount by approximately 300 to 350 employees, primarily by closing its manufacturing facility located in Hauppauge, NY.”
The Hauppauge plant is one of two Amneal operates in Suffolk County, with a specific focus on oral solids production, the company says on its website. Aside from a plethora of sites in New Jersey, plus a sales and distribution center in Glasgow, Kentucky, Amneal runs another Long Island manufacturing location in Brookhaven, NY, where it cranks out oral solids, soft gels and high-potency hormonal products.
Across biopharma, job cuts have been plentiful in 2022. While especially pronounced in the biotech sector, the layoff spree has extended to big-name commercial players, too.
Last month, a California WARN notice revealed that AbbVie and Bristol Myers Squibb plan to lay off 99 and 261 employees, respectively.
Novartis has also revealed sweeping job cuts and recently announced it was closing shop at its Sandoz oral solid generics plant in Wilson, North Carolina, by the end of 2023. The site’s roughly 246 employees had previously been alerted to the closure, a Novartis spokesperson said in an August email.
Elsewhere on the generics front, Teva Pharmaceutical is bidding adieu to 305 staffers at its troubled site in Irvine, California—also unveiled via WARN notice this summer.
"The Teva Irvine facility will not resume production and the company is either transferring or ceasing production of medicines made at the site," a Teva spokesperson later confirmed with Fierce Pharma.