Abbott Laboratories ($ABT) is slashing another 200 positions from a San Diego-area plant that produces cardiovascular stents and other devices, coming off the elimination of 450 jobs at the facility in February.
A company spokesman told the Press-Enterprise that the cuts at Abbott's facility in Temecula, CA, continue a restructuring plan first announced in October designed to adjust the company's workforce "to meet the evolving needs of our business."
The plant, along with the company's operations in French Valley, once employed about 4,000 people. That number is closer to 2,000 now, according to the story. Previously, that has included the slicing off of 450 jobs in February. Abbott cut another 155 positions last October. Even before the restructuring, Abbott eliminated about 340 jobs in the region, the article explains. And Abbott's job reductions have been global, including the elimination of 200 jobs earlier this year at a plant in Ireland that makes stents and catheters.
The Abbott spokesman is quoted as saying that the company wants to keep the Temecula facility open; it makes Absorb scaffolds--a dissolvable stent that has generated buzz as it has entered a number of international markets.
Abbott's job cuts come in the wake of a sagging medical device performance since spinning off pharmaceutical and other operations into what is now AbbVie ($ABBV) earlier this year. Earlier this month, in fact, Abbott disclosed that its 2013 second-quarter device sales clocked in at $1.4 billion, a 1.6% decline from the previous year, reflecting a slump in all of its divisions in the face of pricing pressures, higher competition and a nosedive in coronary procedures around the world.
Abbott said it hopes to address this with more than $500 million in acquisitions now in process, including its $310 million bid for IDEV Technologies, maker of a biomimetic stent for peripheral artery disease. There's also a $250 million-plus offer in the mix for OptiMedica, which develops tools for laser-assisted cataract surgeries. In addition, Abbott said it will reverse revenue slumps with an ongoing rollout of new products such as its Xience Xpedition stent.
- read the Press-Enterprise story
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