Lilly to Icos: Merry Christmas, you're fired

The loss of jobs was really invitable. First of all, pharma acquisitions of pharma almost always target products. One of the first, Schering's acqusition of Key, resulted in the termination of all but a handful of R&D types specific to transdermal patches. Second, in an era when sales forces are being cut, it's hard to justify adding to one's head count. Third, Icos' performance hasn't been so stellar that it would persuade Lilly that its management had anything special to add to a consolidated company -- in fact, much of Lilly's "profits" in recent quarterly reports have been realized due to payments by Lilly for the Icos sales force.

As for the pre-Christmas timing, there are multiple views of that timing. Some argue it ruins the holiday; others, that it gives people more time to look for replacement positions. Pfizer announced it would cut 20% of its sales force -- now 10,000 people wonder who's on the list. Rest assured that the best will have new positions before the cut list comes out; the worst will be hunkered down, trying to be invisible. Meanwhile. much of big pharma is probably preparing for January bloodlettings.

Tough market. What's tougher is that all these cuts will drop thousands onto the job market in an industry not searching for infantry.