Pfizer Inc. and the Incredible Shrinking Sales Force

Once again, Pfizer is cutting its sales force. As part of what has become a never-ending reorganization, the drugmaker is eliminating between 10 percent and 20 percent of its primary care sales team across the US, according to sources. Formal notification is expected to be issued to employees by December 20. The precise number of jobs to be cut is unclear and a Pfizer spokesman declined to provide specifics or state how many sales reps the drugmaker currently employs in its primary care teams or in total in the US. But he did acknowledge in an e-mail that cuts are going to be made. “As part of our strategy to allocate our resources, investments and people to the areas that best serve our patients and customers, we continually evaluate how we can be more efficient and effective,” a Pfizer spokesman writes us. “As a result, we are making changes in some segments of our field force to better match the future needs of the business. Our US field force is a valued resource that we remain committed to developing throughout this period of change.”