Eli Lilly to close Singapore Centre for Drug Discovery
Closure is part of cost-cutting review
Eli Lilly is to close its Singapore Centre for Drug Discovery in December.
The move will affect about 130 employees and comes two years into the US-based pharmaceutical company’s plans to invest US$150m to expand the centre over the next five years.
‘Projects and capabilities deemed a priority for Lilly’s global research organisation will be transitioned to the company’s global headquarters,’ the company said.
Some staff will be able to apply for a limited number of jobs at Lilly’s global headquarters in Indianapolis.
Eli Lilly said the closure was partly as a result of a review of its global business, which aims to cut costs by about US$1bn and reduce its workforce by 5,500 by the end of 2011.
The company said the aim was to ensure that it was structured to ‘most efficiently bring innovative new medicines to patients’.
Lilly Sales and Marketing and the company’s phase 1 clinic, the Lilly-NUS Centre for Clinical Pharmacology, will remain in Singapore.
The Singapore Centre for Drug Discovery currently carries out a small component of cancer and diabetes drug discovery research.