Glaxo’s Consumer Healthcare unit this week began a series of layoffs of an unspecified number of employees as part of a restructuring that also includes moving its weight control and smoking cessation groups from Pennsylvania to New Jersey, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

The consumer unit employs about 1,200 throughout the US, including 500 in Moon, Pennsvlaniva, 400 in Parsippany, New Jersey, and 300 in field sales, and markets more than 30 brands, such as Tums antacids, Contact cold medicine, Breathe Right nasal strips and Aquafresh toothpaste.

The weight control group - which markets the Alli diet pill - and the smoking cessation group - which includes the NicoDerm, Nicorette and Commit products - are being merged into one business called “behavioral sciences” that will be based in Parsippany.

It makes sense to combine the groups, a Glaxo spokeswoman tells the paper. “Frankly, there are a lot of similarities in the behavior required to lose weight and stop smoking. It’s not like you just pop the pill and the weight disappears or that you put on the patch and quit smoking.”

In other cost-cutting moves, Glaxo recently announced it was cutting 2 percent of its R&D staff, or about 350 workers, in its pharma business. And more than 650 jobs will be lost as the drugmaker closes a manufacturing plant in Crawley in the UK by the end of 2011.

Hat tip to Pharmagossip