Adolor cutting staff by 28%

Adolor Corp. said it reduced its workforce by 45 employees, or 28 percent, to save about $12 million a year and shift resources away from early-stage research.

The Exton biopharmaceutical company will now focus on later-stage products, such as its constipation drug Entereg, which it began selling in mid-2008.

Adolor said it expects to record onetime expenses of up to $6 million related to severance for the laid-off employees, who worked in Exton, and changes to laboratory space it will no longer use.

The company posted a loss of $13.2 million in the first quarter this year compared with a los of $9.1 million in last year's first quarter.

"We've put in place some cost-containment to save ourselves $12 million," said Adolor's chief financial officer, Stephen Webster. He added that in the current economic environment with credit difficult to obtain, capital isn't available to life-sciences companies and so they have to contain their costs.

Despite the setbacks, Adolor isn't cutting back on its promotion of Entereg with the London pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline PLC. Adolor is also continuing to develop new drugs in partnership with Pfizer Inc. of New York.