Jobs could go as Schering-Plough restructures in France
The French arm of Schering-Plough is set to announce a restructuring plan on 1 September that could result in the loss of 250 jobs, according to a union representative.
The French arm of Schering-Plough is set to announce a restructuring plan on 1 September that could result in the loss of 250 jobs, according to a union representative.
The restructuring is part of Schering-Plough's consolidation of Organon BioSciences, the purchase of which was announced in March 2007 and completed last November.
In France, the legal merger between the Schering-Plough and Organon subsidiaries has not yet completed. At the time of the purchase, the merger was scheduled for mid-2008 and is now due to take place in the fourth quarter.
The union representative said that staff had been told of a plan to make 250 sales representative jobs redundant, although it was not yet clear if this was a result of the merger or of Schering's wider cost-saving drive.
Schering-Plough announced its Productivity Transformation Program (PTP) in early April, which aims to deal with the consequences of unfavourable clinical results with the cholesterol combination Vytorin/Inegy (ezetimibe plus simvastatin). Sales of Vytorin have fallen since clinical trials suggested the combination therapy was no better than simvastatin alone.
The plan aims to deliver savings of US$1.5bn (Euro 1.0bn) throughout the group by 2012, and includes $500m ( €340m) in synergies that were announced when Schering-Plough bought Organon BioSciences.