Pfizer to cut jobs at Wyeth's Montco site

Pfizer Inc., which bought rival Wyeth last month, said yesterday that it would move "a number of functions" from Wyeth's Collegeville, Montgomery County, location as Pfizer consolidated research and development at five "hub" sites.

Separately yesterday, Johnson & Johnson told Pennsylvania state officials that it would lay off 174 people at its Spring House facility as it pushed forward with 8,000 global job cuts the company announced last week.

Pfizer would not immediately say how many jobs would be eliminated at Collegeville - Wyeth's long-term pharmaceutical headquarters - where it employs 3,600.

The decision could affect hundreds of jobs, said one employee, who did not want to be identified.

About 800 people work in research and development in Collegeville, said State Sen. Andy Dinniman, who along with State Sen. John Rafferty and State Rep. Mike Vereb has pushed the company to keep the jobs there.

Dinniman, a Democrat, represents parts of Chester and Montgomery Counties. Rafferty, a Republican, represents parts of Berks, Chester, and Montgomery Counties. Vereb is a Montgomery County Republican.

Both the Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson announcements come amid unprecedented job reductions in the pharmaceutical industry, which is coping with both a reeling economy and generic competition that threatens to grab about $137 billion in industry revenue in the next five years.

In the last several months, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C. have announced more than 40,000 cuts.

Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer's president of BioTherapeutics Research & Development, emphasized that the Collegeville facility would remain open. The Pfizer campus there will be the headquarters for the company's specialty-business unit, as previously announced.

Specialty business includes the top-selling Prevnar pneumococcal vaccine, and the company's rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilia, and other products for patients and physicians with needs different from those in the broader population. Specialists prescribe many of the drugs in this unit.

"We have been very pleased with the quality of work at Collegeville," Dolsten said, "and it is going to have a key role."

Pfizer earlier said it would close Wyeth operations in Great Valley next year, though the fate of 900 jobs there had not been determined.

Dinniman said he had urged the company to provide details on changes at both locations "as quickly as possible for the peace of mind of those local employees and families who are unsure about their jobs."

Pfizer closed the $68 billion deal on Wyeth on Oct. 16.

Pfizer said it would significantly reduce R&D activities at Collegeville, Pearl River, N.Y., and St. Louis, and would eliminate R&D operations in Princeton, Chazy, Rouses Point, and Plattsburgh, N.Y., Sanford and Research Triangle Park, N.C., and Gosport, Slough/Taplow, in the United Kingdom.

Pfizer said earlier that it planned to cut about 20,000 of 130,000 total jobs after it made the acquisition.

Monsanto Co. said yesterday that it had agreed to acquire Pfizer's laboratories and greenhouses in suburban St. Louis for $435 million. Pfizer said about 600 of the 1,000 jobs at St. Louis would be cut, while some would get transfer offers.

The Johnson & Johnson Spring House employees, who are not represented by a union, will lose their jobs Jan. 8, the company said in a notice to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.

The notice said that these workers did not have bumping rights but would be offered the opportunity to apply for jobs at other J&J locations in the country.

As of April 2008, Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development L.L.C. employed 680 in Spring House, where the company said prescription medicines, including Topamax, Ultram, and Ultracet, were developed.

The company had announced Thursday that, by 2012, it would close research-and-development facilities in Radnor and Chesterbrook and consolidate those operations at its Spring House site.

Johnson & Johnson, which is based in New Brunswick, N.J., would not disclose the number of jobs currently at those sites or the number that would remain after the consolidation. In 2008, the company said it employed 5,100 people in this region.

The company's Philadelphia-area operations include McNeil Consumer & Specialty Pharmaceuticals in Fort Washington, Centocor Inc. in Horsham and Malvern, and pharmaceutical research and development in Spring House.