Pfizer, which has operations in St. Louis, is looking to cut $1 billion in costs, CEO Ian Read told The Wall Street Journal.
About $500 million in annual expenses will be cut this year and another $500 million will be cut next year, sources told the Journal.
“The newest cost-cutting initiative aims to reduce administrative work that is duplicated at Pfizer’s headquarters in New York City and in offices around the world,” the Journal reports. “Also under review, the people said, are spending for promotion, travel, entertainment and consultants, and sales representatives’ spending on printed materials, supplies and electronic gear.”
Pfizer’s selling, informational and administrative expenses totaled nearly $20 billion last year.
This is the latest in cost cuts the pharmaceutical giant is making in response to its drugs losing their exclusivity. Its $3.8 billion antidepressent, Effexor, went off patent last year, and later this year, blockbuster cholesterol drug Lipitor, which had $10.7 billion in sales last year, will face generic competition.
Pfizer cut about 600 jobs from its once 1,000-member work force in Chesterfield, Mo., as part of the pharmaceutical firm’s larger plan to eliminate more than 19,000 jobs and reduce costs by $5 billion by the end of 2012, following its $68 billion Wyeth acquisition.
