A production facility of the Basel pharmaceutical company Novartis, which wants to cut 8,000 jobs worldwide.
Image: dpa
The Basel company is repositioning itself and cutting seven percent of its jobs. In Switzerland alone, 1,400 jobs are to be lost.
Dhe restructuring of the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis will cost a good seven percent of the workforce the job. In the course of the realignment of the main business with the patented drugs, around 8,000 jobs will be lost, as the company explained on Tuesday on request. “This restructuring could affect 1,400 jobs in Switzerland, out of a total of around 8,000 jobs that will be affected worldwide.” The job cuts are to be implemented in the coming months, the company said. Novartis is aware of the impact of the step on its employees and will support them in their professional reorientation. The drug manufacturer from Basel employs 108,000 people worldwide and around 11,600 in Switzerland.
Novartis announced in April that it would position the dominant business with the patented drugs – called Innovative Medicines – geographically instead of according to therapeutic areas and focus more on the important US market. This and other changes are expected to reduce overall selling expenses by at least $1 billion by 2024. Last year, the group generated more than 80 percent of its sales and more than 90 percent of its operating profit with patent-protected drugs. The second pillar Sandoz, the business with copycat drugs, has been put to the test by Novartis and intends to decide on its future by the end of the year. All that was known so far was that Novartis was likely to cut thousands of jobs as part of the restructuring of Innovative Medicines. The newspaper “Tages-Anzeiger” had previously reported on the specific job cuts.
