Thursday February 8, 2007

Drug company Pfizer to cut over 500 jobs, shut plant in Ireland

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) - Pfizer Inc., the world's No. 1 drug maker and one of the biggest foreign employers in Ireland, announced Thursday it is shutting one of its plants here and plans to lay off about 545 employees, nearly a quarter of its work force.

The announcement came two weeks after the U.S. pharmaceutical giant unveiled plans to cut 10,000 jobs and at least five plants worldwide by 2009. It raised fears that Ireland - which over the past decade has boomed on the back of foreign multinational investment - could suffer increased unemployment.

Terry Lambe, Pfizer's vice president of manufacturing for Ireland and Singapore, said part of one plant in Ringaskiddy, County Cork, would shut by the end of this year with the loss of 65 jobs.

Lambe spoke after addressing some of Pfizer's 2,200 employees in Ringaskiddy, a hub for biopharmaceutical companies outside the city of Cork in southwest Ireland. He said two plants in the Ringaskiddy complex would close by 2009 with 480 more jobs at risk.

But the company and the government's employment minister, Michael Martin, said they hoped to find another company to buy the plants and retain at least some of the work force. Several multinational drug makers have bases in Cork.

"These are difficult times for the workers and their families. The government's priority, together with the IDA (Ireland's Investment and Development Agency) is to save these 480 jobs by supporting Pfizer in its efforts to secure the sale of the plants,'' said Martin, who also is a Cork lawmaker.

After the cutbacks, Pfizer is expected to retain at least four plants in Ringaskiddy and Dun Laoghaire, a southern suburb of Dublin.

Lambe cited Pfizer's decision in December to scrap its cholesterol drug treatment torcetrapib as "by far the most significant factor impacting future capacity demand in Ireland.''

Pfizer abandoned the drug after an US$800 million (euro1 billion) development program because of an unexpectedly high number of deaths in a clinical trial. A plant in Ringaskiddy had been expected to manufacture the drug.

But Lambe said Pfizer was committed to Ireland as its preferred low-tax, high-skills base in the European Union.

"New technologies are changing the way pharmaceuticals are being manufactured and Pfizer is investing in those technologies in Ireland,'' Lambe said. "We are confident that the steps we're taking today will better align our operations in Ireland with our future needs and strengthen our manufacturing base.''

Pfizer faces already declining revenues worldwide because several of its top-selling products have lost patent protection or will do so soon, leaving the company open to lower-priced competition from generic makers of the drugs. Analysts have estimated that such competition could cost Pfizer more than 40 percent of its sales from 2010 to 2012.

The withdrawn drug, torcetrapib, was to have been the successor to Pfizer's top-selling drug, Lipitor, which could lose patent protection in 2010.-AP

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