Bristol-Myers Squibb Is Freezing Salaries
6 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // February 4th, 2010 // 8:18 am
Amid all the cutbacks drugmakers are undertaking, Bristol-Myers Squibb is now freezing salaries this year across the board and also eliminating the future deferral of vacation time, according to a communication that ceo Jim Cornelius sent to employees yesterday. Bonuses, however, won’t be hit, which would seem to favor execs (look here). A spokesman confirmed the move but declined further comment.
The belt tightening, which garnered some choice comments on CafePharma, comes as most every big drugmaker is shedding employees - GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Merck and Lilly have all taken such steps. Like others, Bristol is bracing for the 2012 patent expiration of Plavix, the $8 billion blood thinner it co-markets with Sanofi. The the WSJ health blog also reported this item.
pharmavet
OK with me. Most of us are overpaid anyway.
Former Pharma Marketing Director
Good that BMS is able to hold the jobs and freeze the salaries rather then fire….
Hope more people step up to the plate with this idea.
It would be nice if the CEO’s and other top executives would defer their excessive bonuses in order to save more jobs, but that might be asking too much. Ah the bourgeoisie…Different century, same S**t…
Pro BMS
Tough times call for drastic measures….we still have jobs….focus on what you can control…..helping patients with cutting edge meds BMS
Kim
Interesting that this comes in the same week we saw an article in the health policy literature entitles “Are health care workers overpaid?” The suggestion made therein was that hospitals had too may employees and would soon need to start cutting both head counts and salaries in light of the approaching crisis in US health care spending.
There’s considerable evidence suggesting that the difference in input prices of everything, including pay scales for physicians and hospital workers as well as the prices of biopharmaceuticals are important contributors to the higher health care expenditures we see in the US versus the rest of the OECD. Well in excess of half the cost of health care services comes from wages. I expect that if we could get a full line-by-line accounting, the same would be true for prescription products.
This may just be tacit acceptance of the inevitable. If health care reform doesn’t create a “value based” delivery system, then it’s going to come down to unit pricing. In that environment getting the fixed cost burden down will be important for survival for all stakeholders, including biopharma.
M. White
Doesn’t surprise me.. we get screwed, scapegoated, and generally f’ed
over, while the executives pull nice bonuses for doing it!!!
Jaynesday
My very first reaction to this was - count yourselves blessed. Really, really blessed.