February 17, 2015
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Germany-based Boehringer Ingelheim announced yesterday that it will be continuing its restructuring with job cuts in the U.S. The company indicated it will be laying off an unspecific number of employees in its Ridgefield, Conn., facility, which employs approximately 1,800 people.
In August 2014 Boehringer Ingelheim announced it planned to cut jobs in order to free up cash for investments. This was in response to half-year earnings, which were marked by a 3 percent drop in sales in the U.S. to €6.5 billion. The company at that time said it planned to invest €643 million in new projects in 2014.
“Boehringer Ingelheim is in the process of rebalancing its workforce in the U.S. to put the company in the best position for future growth,” said company spokeswoman Erin Crew in a statement. “This process is following a thoughtful evaluation of our business to continue to meet the changing needs of the patients we serve. We are committed to treating all employees with dignity, respect and sensitivity.”
On Jan. 15, 2015 the company announced it had entered into an alliance with Paris-based Sanofi to extend Sanofi’s manufacturing capacity network for therapeutic monoclonal antibodies. Boehringer Ingelheim will provide contract manufacturing capabilities in support of Sanofi’s pipeline.
Worldwide Boehringer Ingelheim employs about 47,500 people. A family-owned company founded in 1885, in 2013 it reported net sales of approximately 14.1 billion euros. The company has not announced its2014 earnings yet, but in 2013 its net sales dropped by4 percent from the previous year. Its Annual Press Conference to discuss 2014 financials will be held on April 22, 2015.
The company does indicate it had a 5.4 percent drop in prescription medication sales in the first half of 2014. In addition, it announced on May 28, 2014that is had reached a settlement of state and federal cases in the U.S. over Pradaxa (dabigatran etexilate). The company paid $650 million to end the litigation.
Pradaxa is used for stroke prevention, but there were over 2,000 lawsuits in the U.S. alleging the drug caused severe and fatal bleeding. The settlement came after reaffirmation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that the drug had a positive benefit-risk profile.
“We continue to stand resolutely behind Pradaxa and believed from the outset that the plaintiff’s claims lacked any merit,” said Andreas Neumann, head of the Boehringer Ingelheim Legal Department and General Counsel in a statement. “Notwithstanding our strong believe that we would prevail in these lawsuits, this settlement allows our company to avoid the distraction and uncertainty of protracted litigation over years and years.”
BioSpace Temperature Poll
Will Job Cuts Continue? After a week that saw Quintiles, Sanofi and Actavis slashing almost a 1,000 biotech jobs, BioSpace wonders if the ax will continue to fall. Give us your thoughts about the sector’s “streamlining” below.
