Takeda plots 1,400 job cuts at U.S. ops

Takeda Pharmaceutical says it is going to cut more than 1,400 jobs from its U.S. operations as it preps for generic competition to diabetes blockbuster Actos, Chicago Breaking Business reports.

In the Chicago area, Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America plans to eliminate 28 percent of the 1,300 positions at its headquarters in Deerfield, the business pub reports. About 20 percent of the jobs at Takeda Global Research and Development Center will also be cut; that center has about 840 workers.

The cuts are part of a transformation plan aimed at answering the drug industry's biggest challenges. "The business environment for the pharmaceutical industry is changing dramatically," the company says in a statement, "with the pharmaceutical industry as a whole facing barriers to technological innovation that have halted progress in breakthrough novel drugs, stricter approval processes for new drugs in advanced nations, and radical upheaval in healthcare systems."

Plenty of drugmakers would agree about those dramatic changes and the job cuts they often entail. Over the last several years, pharma companies have slashed tens of thousands of jobs from their payrolls, with layoffs at Merck (post-merger with Schering-Plough), Pfizer (post-Wyeth merger), Eli Lilly (5,500 cuts announced last fall) and more.

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