April 10, 2015
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Eisai, a U.S. subsidiary of Japan-based Eisai Co., announced yesterday that it plans to lay off about 25 percent of its staff in the U.S. The company employs about 1,800 people in the United States and does not plan to close its main office or facilities.
“The actions we are taking will ensure Eisai stays competitive in a rapidly changing business environment,” said Yuji Matsue, chairman and chief executive officer of Eisai in a statement.
“Eisai remains fully committed to the U.S. market and will continue to serve the needs of patients and their families by developing and marketing important new treatments that help to satisfy unmet medical needs. Through this realignment, we will be able to deploy our resources to support the development of our priority late-stage compounds and our current product portfolio.”
Eisai Co.’s headquarters are located in Tokyo, Japan, with its U.S. subsidiary headquartered in Woodcliff Lake, N.J. The company manufactures and markets prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications. In its 2014 annual report, the company cited downward pressure on drug prices and an emphasis on ways to develop and maintain intellectual property while requiring stricter compliance and higher transparency as part of its business headwinds.
A year ago the company developed a global matrix-based structure that created two global units of oncology and neurology “encompassing the four regions of Japan, the Americas, Asia and EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Russia and Oceania). Under this matrix-based structure, we will shift from a company dependent upon two major brands—Alzheimer’s disease treatment agent Aricept and the proton pump inhibitor Pariet/AcipHex—as its pillars of global business to a multi-brand company that aims to growth through multiple kinds of promising global brands.”
“The restructuring,” says Suzanne Grogan, associate director of Eisai Corporate Communications in an email to BioSpace, “is focused on our Commercial and Regional Corporate Services units. There are approximately 850 employees in these two business units, of which approximately 25 percent will be affected by this restructuring. The realignment will not affect our manufacturing or research and development units.”
On March 26, 2015, the company announced it had received manufacturing and marketing authorization in Japan for its anticancer drug Lenvima (lenvatinib mesylate) for the treatment of unresectable thyroid cancer. The drug was launched in the U.S. in February 2015 and is currently being reviewed by regulatory agencies in the European Union, as well as Switzerland, South Korea, Canada, Singapore, Russia, Australia and Brazil.
The company reported $600.4 million in sales in 2014, with the Americas component responsible for about 26.5 percent of the top line.
The layoffs follow news in March 2015 that Tokyo-based Daiichi Sankyo, which has U.S. headquarters in Parsippany, N.J., also will lay off 16 percent of its U.S. staff. The company’s North American revenue increased 6.0 percent from the previous year, but in local currency, revenue fell 1.5 percent.
Of the Eisai layoffs, Grogan says, “We are keenly aware of the impact this restructuring has on our employees and their families. We are providing displaced employees with a generous transition package as well as transition assistance to help them during this period. Eligible employees are able to post for job openings for which they may be qualified.”
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After last week’s news that Gilead had issued a health advisory to doctors, concern is growing after nine patients taking Harvoni or Sovaldi along with another drug, amiodarone, were treated for abnormally slow heartbeats. One of the patients died of cardiac arrest. Three of the nine patients required a pacemaker. That has BioSpace asking, what next?
