Disappointing sales, looming competition for its key drug and an unsuccessful acquisition have laid the foundation for a major overhaul at Canada's QLT. The company plans to cut up to 46 percent of its workers, sell off non-core assets, slash R&D and overhead by 20 percent and narrow its focus to ophthalmology and one other therapeutic area yet to be decided on. And in a move to bolster its stock price, the company is doubling the size of its share buyback plan. Analysts say that sales of QLT's cancer drug Eligard have been disappointing and its acquisition of Kinetek in 2001 has failed to produce one new drug for human testing. QLT's blindness drug Visudyne also faces a major challenge from Genentech's Lucentis, which is expected on the market next year.
- read this report from The Globe and Mail for more