Big Pharmas Like Johnson & Johnson, Boehringer Ingelheim Corporation. Eli Lilly, and Roche are Shedding Jobs in Korea

December 22, 2014
By Krystle Vermes, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

Pharmaceutical companies operating in Korea are adopting early retirement programs to cut jobs, according to the Korea Times. The goal is to assist with restructuring programs and adopt to sluggish sales.

Janssen Korea, the Korean unit of Johnson & Johnson , recently announced that it will shed 50 jobs, or approximately 10 percent of its staff, with a voluntary retirement program. Korean units of Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly and Company have also conducted early retirement programs.

"The ERP is an easy way for multinational companies to cut jobs, mainly in their sales divisions,” an industry insider told the news source. “It's far from boosting competitiveness, however."

Operational Changes and the Impact on Foreign Countries
In many instances, biopharmaceutical companies decide to alter operations over time to accommodate various needs. In turn, countries involved in the companies’ business ventures need to be mindful of changes.

In October, Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly and Company announced that they would change the operational and financial structure of their diabetes alliance in certain countries. A total of 17 countries representing more than 90 percent of the alliance’s market opportunity were set to continue with their co-promotion work, including South Korea.

“Lilly and Boehringer Ingelheim have a highly successful alliance,” said Enrique Conterno, president of Lilly Diabetes. “In less than four years, our companies have worked to develop and introduce several new important treatments for diabetes. The revised agreement will bring greater focus and clarity to our alliance and will benefit health care professionals, patients, and our companies. We look forward to continuing our important work together that makes life better for people with diabetes.”

As a result of the revised agreement, both companies will exclusively commercialize the molecules they brought to the alliance in all other countries. The changes will start to be implemented beginning in 2015. The alliance was initially launched back in 2011.

“As our alliance continues to evolve, and with more medicines receiving approval by regulators, we have determined that enhancements are needed to reduce operational complexities in certain countries around the world,” said Ulrich Drees, corporate senior vice president of international project management at Boehringer Ingelheim. “By continuing our work under this revised model, our companies can better focus on the important task of delivering innovative solutions to patients.”