Actelion Ltd. (ATLN) plans to cut 135 jobs and refocus research on rare diseases and specialty pharmaceuticals as sales decline for the company’s best-selling product, the Tracleer blood-pressure drug.
Actelion (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The cost savings will reduce research spending, and some projects will be stopped, the Allschwil, Switzerland-based company said in a statement today. Actelion will take a charge against 2012 earnings, though the amount hasn’t been determined yet, the company said.
Lowering expenses will address challenges including the strength of the Swiss franc, increased competition in the U.S. and lower prices and government reimbursement for drugs in Europe, the company said. The jobs, to be cut in research and administration, equal 5.3 percent of the company’s workforce of about 2,570 people, according to the annual report.
“It’s good to see they’re doing the right thing,” Michael Leuchten, an analyst at Barclays Capital in London, said in a telephone interview today. “It’s a bit more than they had been talking about” at a briefing in May, when the company said it would seek cost reductions in research, and not administration…
via Actelion Plans to Cut 135 Jobs, Refocus Research Effort – Businessweek.
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