CRO Giant Quintiles to Slash 270 Jobs Worldwide
February 13, 2015
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Durham, N.C.-based QLT Inc. , a leading contract research organization (CRO), announced yesterday that despite projected growth for 2015, the company will be restructuring, which will result in job losses.
Quintiles indicated in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it will cut 270 jobs worldwide. This is the third consecutive year the company has laid off employees.
“Quintiles routinely evaluates its resource needs and makes adjustments in line with our overall strategy,” said company spokesman Phil Bridges in a statement. “To provide proper context, we currently have more than 1,200 open positions worldwide for which we are recruiting.”
The company’s fourth quarter earnings call reported that in the fourth quarter the company had a 22.2 percent net new business growth and a 29.1 percent diluted adjusted earnings per share growth. For the full year of 2014 the company reported a 10.1 percent constant currency service revenue growth and a 14.4 percent net new business growth that yielded $11.24 billion of diversified backlog.
Quintiles has been quick to put the current round of layoffs into a global perspective. It employs 4,000 more people in 2014 than the previous years, an increase of 13 percent.
“We’re also a job creator, with thousands joining us, balanced around the world between the Americas, Europe and Asia,” said Tom Pike, Quintiles chief executive in the Feb. 12 earnings conference call. “We continue to believe the market for our services is strong and growing.”
The company has invested about $9 million in restructuring costs in 2014, but that productivity initiatives in 2015 will require more restructuring costs. The current round of job cuts are expected to be spread out over two years.
The SEC filing also indicated that the company has been consistently restructuring for several years, with charges hitting $18.7 million in 2012, $14.1 million in 2013, and the previously mentioned $9.0 million in 2014. Quintiles projects that the restructuring plans in 2014 will result in annualized cost savings of $20 to $25 million.
“A year ago, we said Quintiles was entering 2014 positioned for growth and we achieved that goal by delivering an additional $383 million of constant currency service revenue during 2014 representing growth of 10.1 percent, net new business growth of 14.4 percent, and diluted adjusted earnings per share growth of 31.1 percent,” said Pike in a statement. “These metrics paint a picture of a strong year for Quintiles.”
BioSpace Temperature Poll
Who Do You Think Will Be Sanofi’s New CEO? French drugmaker Sanofi said Thursday that it will name a new chief executive in mere weeks, as it attempted to put to rest rumors that the company could not find any executives willing to take the reins after it unceremoniously ousted its previous CEO last fall. Who do you think will soon be crowned king? BioSpace wants your opinion!