While smaller biotech outfits have certainly taken the brunt, the layoff deluge of the past year hasn’t spared big pharmas either. Now, after unveiling more than 250 job cuts in San Diego in September, Bristol Myers Squibb is turning its staff reduction campaign northeast.
Starting at the end of May, BMS will roll out job cuts for 48 employees in Princeton, New Jersey, according to a new Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) alert filed with the state.
The BMS site in question is a 650,000-square-foot facility that houses employees from the commercial team, plus commercialization and late-stage development partners from the R&D unit. The plant also hosts members of BMS’ global product development and supply teams, according to the company’s website.
It’s not immediately clear what types of roles will be affected.
Putting the cuts into context, Bristol's business model is "evolving to support our mission to discover, develop and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious diseases," a company spokesperson said over email.
"As we move forward in 2023, we are continuing to deliver on our long-term business strategy by aligning resources to best support our operating model and our portfolio evolution," she added.
The move comes about half a year after BMS said it would lay off 261 employees across two separate sites in San Diego County. A BMS spokesperson confirmed at the time that the slimdown related to BMS’ $4.1 billion buyout of cancer specialist Turning Point Therapeutics in August 2022.
Change is afoot at BMS. Late last month, the company made the shock announcement that its eight-year CEO Giovanni Caforio, M.D., would end his stint at the top of the company, passing the baton to chief commercialization officer Chris Boerner.
Caforio will hit the exit on Nov. 1 and continue to lead BMS’ board as executive chairman for a yet-undetermined transition period. The transition positions Boerner against several looming exclusivity cliffs. Three of BMS’ top-selling drugs—Pfizer-shared blood thinner Eliquis, blood cancer med Revlimid and PD-1 inhibitor Opdivo—are all set to lose U.S. patent protections later this decade.
Meanwhile, striking M&A deals remains BMS’ “top priority,” chief financial officer David Elkins said on a recent earnings call. BMS is angling to record more than $25 billion by 2030 in combined sales of seven drugs launched since 2020 as part of its bid to soften the blow once it topples over the patent cliff.
During the first quarter of 2023, Bristol reported $723 million from a group of nine new medicines, including its pair of CAR-T therapies Abecma and Breyanzi.
Beyond BMS, 2023 has continued to see layoffs come in droves. Already this year, pharma majors like Biogen, Amgen and Thermo Fisher have cut hundreds of positions.