Thousands of jobs may be in threat, confirms pharma giant Novartis
Earlier this month, it was reported that pharma giant Novartis will merge its oncology and pharma businesses, the merger will reportedly be overlooked by US and international market organizations. It was further reported that there could be layoffs numbering thousands. Novartis then hired Ronny Gal a Ph.D. and famous wall-street analyst to head the merger and acquisition. Vas Narasimhan who is the CEO of Novartis has said that the Gal’s job will not include heading the R&D and commercial teams, and they will remain independent. The company has now confirmed that many thousand employee jobs could be in the red zone.
The company stated that after consulting with work councils and finalization of organizational structure, the number of employees to be fired is within the range of one digit thousand. And no solid number was provided by the company as the process is still ongoing.
The new structure would be operational by the end of this year whereas some employees who would be affected could be able to switch into open role. Earlier, the company stated that such a combination could trigger few job layoffs but it was early to make speculations as to which roles would be cut and how many would be cut. At the same time, three of Novartis’ executive were fired from their positions in the company. Although it was not specified which job types would get affected or in which locations. Furthermore, the company is also reviewing its options for their generic unit named Sandoz, the company is yet to decide if they will keep this business or demerge it completely.
The reorganization plan has created a new position who would be in charge of R&D, portfolio strategy, business development and corporate strategy.
Narasimhan further said in a press call that under the company’s ongoing Merger and acquisition, Gal will be targeting deals which are below $2 billion. He further added that the aim of this restructuring, is to save around $1 billion per year by the year 2024.
Around 41000 Novartis employees are currently working in marketing and sales as of 2021. The company also has about 13000 employees in operations along with 5000 working in general administration.
