Pfizer to close six global R&D sites as part of post-Wyeth acquisition cost-cutting

Coming within a few weeks of the completion of its $68 billion buy-out of Wyeth, global number one drugmaker Pfizer has revealed plans to close sic of its R&D sites, saying it will focus on disease-area research in single locations and more efficiently use the company's real estate.

As a result, Pfizer will have five main research sites that will serve as central hubs for research activities in BioTherapeutics, PharmaTherapeutics and Vaccines. These sites are: Cambridge, Massachusetts. Groton, Connecticut.; Pearl River, New York; La Jolla, California; and Sandwich, UK These research-oriented laboratories will be supplemented by specialized research capabilities, such as monoclonal antibody discovery in San Francisco, regenerative medicine work in Cambridge, UK, and R&D activities in Shanghai, China, the company noted.

'By focusing our R&D operations in these centers, we are building the world's premier biopharmaceutical R&D enterprise,' said Mikael Dolsten, president of BioTherapeutics R&D. 'This new structure puts Pfizer in the best position to conduct cutting-edge research within and beyond our own laboratories and to deliver a portfolio of high-impact medicines to patients.'
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s part of the consolidation of research sites, Pfizer will significantly reduce R&D activities at some of its sites. The company will move a number of functions from Collegeville, Pennsylvania. Pearl River and St. Louis to other locations and will discontinue R&D operations in Princeton, New Jersey; Chazy, Rouses Point and Plattsburgh, New York.; Sanford and Research Triangle Park, North Carolina; and Gosport, Slough/Taplow, UK In addition, Pfizer will consolidate R&D functions from its New London, Connecticut, site to its nearby research facility in Groton.

Job losses, R&D spending cuts not specified

As a result of these changes, Pfizer says it will reduce its global R&D square footage by 35%, but did not indicate the amount of job losses, nor how much would be cut from Pfizer/Wyeth's combined $11 billion R&D budget. R&D activities will now be conducted at five main sites and nine specialized units around the world as compared with 20 R&D sites upon closing the acquisition of Wyeth on October 16.

Pfizer's new R&D organization includes a BioTherapeutics division focused on large-molecule and vaccine research and a PharmaTherapeutics division focused on small molecule discovery and drug delivery technologies. The two divisions will work together in high-priority disease areas ' neuroscience, pain, inflammation, oncology, metabolic disorders, vaccines and infectious diseases. Disease-specific research units and biotechnology units work across both divisions to provide the disease area and technology expertise needed to discover and deliver high-impact medicines for patients.

Additionally, Pfizer will sell its Chesterfield Village Research Center, St Louis, cutting 600 of its 1,000 area jobs, for $435 million to Monsanto, which owned the facility until 2002, reports the St Louis Business Journal. Pfizer will lease space in the facility ' which was acquired along with Pharmacia in 2003 - for its 400 remaining workers, who will focus on biotherapeutic research with large molecule medicines,