Allergan is Laying Off 109 Employees in SoCal, Effective October 23
August 29, 2017
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
IRVINE, Calif. – Layoffs are coming to two pharmaceutical company facilities in Orange County, with more than 100 jobs cuts expected to hit Allergan employees.
The Orange County Register said that 109 Allergan employees at that company’s Irvine location will be terminated effective Oct. 23. It was not immediately clear what was causing Dublin-based Allergan to slash its headcount at the Irvine facility or which positions would be effected. The layoffs were confirmed through Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications filed with the state of California. The Register said it reached out to the company’s corporate offices, but had not received a response by the time it went to press.
In Orange County, Allergan has both eyecare and its medical aesthetics facilities. That includes the company’s blockbuster Botox drug, which has use in aesthetical treatment as well as in the care of migraine headaches.
Earlier in August, Allergan released strong second quarter financial reports that showed a 9 percent revenue increase over the same quarter one year prior. Allergan earned $4 billion in the second quarter, according to the report. Primary drivers in the quarter were Botox, Juvederm and Alloderm. New products such as schizophrenia drug Vraylar, Alzheimer’s drug Namzaric and gastrointestinal drug Vibrezi also contributed, the company said in its announcement. Allergan is seeing some revenue declines in older drugs such as Namenda XR and Restasis.
Earlier this summer, it was reported that Allergan was positioning itself for additional stock buybacks and possible acquisitions, although those are not likely to be transformative to the company, more along the lines of strengthening the pipeline. As an example in June, Allergan acquired medical device manufacturer Keller Medical to bolster the company’s medical aesthetics offerings. The company was focused on cash flow, Tessa Hilado, the company’s chief financial officer said. All of this is in response to the company’s sale of Actavis Generics to Israel-based Teva last year.
Allergan isn’t the only Orange County pharma company to announce layoffs. Earlier this month Tustin, Calif.-based Peregrine Pharmaceuticals announced it will slash its workforce by 20 percent as part of a plan to reduce costs while it pursues strategic options for its research and development assets. With the terminations, Peregrine said it expects the layoffs to result in a cost savings of between $3.7 million and $4.3 million in fiscal year 2018 and more than $7 million in reduced annualized operating expenses beginning in fiscal year 2019. Part of the terminations include a 50 percent reduction of Peregrine’s research and development staff, which drops the number of that team to 11 employees. In its announcement this morning, the company said it intends to terminate 60 employees in its “strategic action” to put the company in a better position to achieve overall profitability.