Four months after closing its $14 billion Nycomed buyout, Japan's Takeda says it will take an ax to its R&D operations as it sheds 2,800 employees. Most of the layoffs will occur in Europe, with about 700 slated to lose their jobs in the U.S.
Takeda said that the consolidation effort will leave some R&D facilities shuttered, but didn't spell out exactly where the cuts would fall. Bloomberg, though, reports that a trade union group in Germany has been told that an R&D site in Konstanz is affected, with some 1,200 staffers in the country losing their jobs.
Takeda's statement on the downsizing, which will eliminate about 9% of its global workforce, emphasized a planned shift in focus from mature products to new therapeutics. And it spelled out a long list of disease fields in which it is working: metabolic diseases, gastroenterology, oncology, cardiovascular health, CNS diseases, inflammatory and immune disorders, respiratory diseases and pain management.
"Takeda will invest strongly in R&D focused on core therapeutic areas, while effectively deploying both internal and external resources to create innovative drugs and transform treatment paradigms," the company said in a statement. "The integrated R&D organization aims to support Takeda's global vision of bringing innovative products to address patients' needs by maximizing efficiency, driving standardization, optimizing resource utilization and driving productivity."
The cuts are scheduled to take place by the end of fiscal 2015.
- here's the press release
- read the Bloomberg report
Special Report: Takeda - The world's biggest R&D spenders