Reorganisation of Bayer Schering Pharma r&d activities to cost 800 US jobs
The structure of Bayer Schering Pharma's global research and development organisation has been defined and a reorganisation of the US sites has been initiated. Research programmes and activities will be consolidated into three major r&d sites: Berlin and Wuppertal in Germany and Berkeley in California, US.
The structure of Bayer Schering Pharma's global research and development organisation has been defined and a reorganisation of the US sites has been initiated. Research programmes and activities will be consolidated into three major r&d sites: Berlin and Wuppertal in Germany and Berkeley in California, US.
The Berlin research group will take leadership for diagnostic imaging, oncology and gynecology/andrology research, and Wuppertal will be core for the company's cardiology research. Both locations have significant capabilities and activities in target discovery, lead generation and optimization, drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics, toxicology and clinical pharmacology.
Berkeley will remain an important global r&d centre for protein-based biologics drug discovery and will continue to be home to the Kogenate biological manufacturing facility. This facility is expected to become a research centre of excellence and anchor for continuing work in hematology as well as in immunology and inflammation.
In addition, the site in California will also remain the headquarters for the global hematology/cardiology business unit. Leukine, a growth factor for white blood cells, will continue to be manufactured in the Puget Sound region in the state of Washington.
As a result, the Bayer HealthCare's US research site in West Haven, Connecticut, and that of Berlex (US subsidiary of Schering) in Richmond, California, will be closed. Bayer Pharma will relocate remaining departments and functions presently based in West Haven into headquarters locations in New Jersey.
Wayne and Montville, New Jersey, will be headquarters for the company's US pharmaceutical commercial operations and global oncology and specialised therapeutics business units, and home to US-based global drug development groups and other business support functions.
The consolidation of research activities is expected to be largely complete by the end of the first half of 2007 and will result in the loss of approximately 600 US jobs, primarily in research. Over time it is anticipated to eliminate an additional 200 US-based positions by the overall reorganisation. The company expects to achieve overall r&d cost-savings in excess of US$210m per year by the end of 2008. Synergies totaling e700m ($544m) are expected to be achieved from 2009.
Schering's present Berlin-based German sales organisation is set to relocate to Leverkusen, where Bayer HealthCare's German sales function, Bayer Vital, is based. It is also planned to relocate Bayer HealthCare's primary care business unit and the European sales units for oncology and hematology/cardiology from Wuppertal and Leverkusen to the future headquarters of Bayer Schering Pharma in Berlin.
'The changes in research and development will leverage the combined assets of Schering and Bayer to maximise both the output and effectiveness of our global drug discovery and development programmes,' said Arthur Higgins, chairman of the board of Bayer HealthCare and chairman of the board of management of the future Bayer Schering Pharma. 'They also give us the flexibility to substantially lower our ongoing infrastructure costs.'