The Novartis headquarters in Basel [Copyright ® Novartis AG]
Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis announced today it will cut 2,000 jobs from its workforce, with the majority of the redundancies being made in Switzerland and the US.
The company, which employs more than 115,000 people in 140 countries, made the announcement as it reported its third-quarter financial results, which showed that net sales grew by 18pc to US$14.8bn. For the first nine months of the year, sales were up 20pc to US$43.8bn.
The company said it was announcing cost-reduction activities to improve productivity and absorb pricing pressures. This activity will be carried out over three to five years and will include reallocating production within the Novartis network resulting in closure of two sites in Switzerland and one in Italy; restructuring the development organisation largely in Switzerland and the US; and relocating some research activities from Switzerland to the US.
The company said the job losses would be offset by 700 new positions in low-cost and other countries.
“Once again, the breadth of our business and product portfolio allowed us to deliver strong financial results and operating leverage, as well as significantly advancing the pipeline in the quarter,” said Joseph Jimenez, CEO of Novartis. “To strengthen our future, we have accelerated actions to reduce our cost base over the next few years.
“These actions are necessary to ensure that we adapt our organisation to continue delivering on our mission of bringing innovative new drugs to patients.”
Article courtesy of Businessandleadership.com
