Glaxo lays plans to pink-slip R&D workers

GlaxoSmithKline is beginning to detail plans to cut as many as 380 jobs at its R&D complex in Harlow, England. According to a Press Association report out this morning, GSK has begun a 90-day consultation process at the site, which employs 1,150 people.

Last week a spokesperson for GlaxoSmithKline said that the Harlow site and another R&D center in Verona, Italy faced the biggest job cuts as the pharma giant dropped its work on depression and pain. A smaller R&D center in Tonbridge is slated for closure with additional cuts planned in Zagreb Croatia, Poznan in Poland, and Mississauga in Canada.

Glaxo CEO Andrew Witty has been hammering away at the company's pipeline to make it more productive. He told investors last week that between 1998 and 2007 the £3 billion spent on research each year delivered no new molecular entities to the market.

- here's the story from the Press Association