Schering-Plough Slashes Jobs After Organon Deal
7 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // February 27th, 2008 // 3:53 pm
You read it here first. The drugmaker is undergoing a companywide downsizing today in the wake of its $14 billion acquisition of Organon Biosciences, which was completed last November. The number of jobs being eliminated isn’t clear - sources say the total numbers in the hundreds, and possibly much higher- and affects nearly all departments, including finance, marketing, research, information technology at multiple locations in New Jersey, where the drugmaker is based.
A spokeswoman confirms that “a number” of jobs have been eliminated as a result of the “integration process,” but declined further comment.
Layoffs were expected after the Organon deal, but the cutbacks were delayed, mostly due to the distraction caused by the ongoing controversy over the Vytorin trial. The downturn in Vytorin prescriptions, of course, places additional pressure on ceo Fred Hassan and his team to realign revenue and costs this year. As further details emerge, we will update you.
Insider
Tough decisions by Fred - remember your questionnaire!?
SP 2
This is extremely unfortunate for the many hard-working, dedicated employees at Schering-Plough who have absolutely nothing to do with the latest fiasco to hit the company. Large numbers stuck with SP during the previous difficult years and hoped that rewards for doing so would be forthcoming. The present top management team is certainly not among those people and have recently made a series of bad decisions that are now impacting the company’s future potential. As usual, the workers will receive their pink slips and the top management team will get their golden parachutes. What a surprise in Big Pharma!
WBP
Hi Ed,
It’s interesting to see this story. Has there been any announcement from SP?
WBP
Ed Silverman
Hi WBP,
No, Schering-Plough did not make an announcement. I learned of this independently and had to call the company to confirm that layoffs were taking place.
Regards
ed
Pharma News 3_1 « Impactiviti blog
[...] The Schering/Organon merger produces the expected job cuts. [...]
Bill
Ed,
There does not appear to be any confirmation of this news out there. Are you still 100% sure this is correct?
Thanks,
Bill
Ed Silverman
Hi Bill,
Yes, absolutely sure. As I wrote, a company spokeswoman did confirm the layoffs, but declined to discuss headcount. I was told a wide range by different sources, both of whom are reliable, but I felt the need to be conservative and not report specific numbers, or anything like that, unless I could go the next step and verify with additional sourcing.
You should keep in mind that, often times, companies do not like to draw attention to downsizing for various reasons - such as negative publicity or issues with government tax incentives. As a business journalist for many years who has covered different industries, not every company will issue press releases when they shove people overboard. If waiting for an announcement is equivalent to confirmation, I’m afraid you’re going to have a long wait.
Hope this helps,
ed