Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug maker, will slash 2,200 US sales jobs as chief executive Jeffrey Kindler reduces expenses to compensate for revenue lost to cheaper generic competition.
The 20 percent cut in Pfizer's 11,000-person sales staff is an "initial step" growing out of a companywide review of operations disclosed in October, New York-based Pfizer said yesterday. Pfizer said it will outline additional steps in January.
Pfizer has eliminated more than 5,000 positions since early 2005 under an expense-reduction plan started last year, the company said in a third-quarter filing. In October, the drug maker cut its revenue forecast for the next two years. By 2011, analysts project generic competition will cost Pfizer much of the revenue from four of its biggest drugs, including the cholesterol pill Lipitor, which accounted for almost half of 2005 revenue.
Hank McKinnell, Kindler's predecessor who was ousted in July, had set in motion a plan to cut annual costs by $4 billion between 2005 and 2008. Pfizer expects to save $2.5 billion this year from plant closings and staff reductions, according to the third-quarter filing.
Pfizer said it will maintain "strong support" for products including Lipitor, the pain pill Celebrex, and the schizophrenia medicine Geodon, and for new drugs such as the pain treatment Lyrica, the inhaled insulin Exubera, the stop-smoking drug Chantix, and the cancer medication Sutent.
Members of the US sales staff will be notified next month if they are among those being fired, a Pfizer spokesman said. Pfizer has 42,000 employees in the United States. Worldwide employment at the end of last year was 106,000.
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