Roche to cut jobs in product development team

Roche on Friday confirmed to FirstWord that it is cutting a "small number" of positions in its pharma product development division. An initial media report appearing in the Swiss media outlet muula.ch suggested the company was eliminating around 345 positions as part of a broader internal cost-control effort in response to its recent "subdued" performance in 2023 and a cautious outlook for this year.

Earlier this month, Roche reported that sales dropped 7% last year while profits were down 9%, impacted by waning COVID-19 product demand and biosimilar competition to its cancer drugs MabThera/Rituxan, Herceptin and Avastin.

In a statement to FirstWord, a spokesperson for Roche said, "We expect the majority of the proposed headcount reduction to impact external contractors." The total count of permanent internal employees who might be impacted by the cuts is expected to be less than 6% of the product development division, or fewer than 340 people, the spokesperson said, although they could not share a precise figure.

"Despite these adjustments and any prospective developments in our company's operations as a whole, we project that the overall workforce at Roche will remain stable throughout 2024," the spokesperson added, noting that the company is looking to hire people to fill some 1500 open positions across the business.

Out of the 5800 global positions involved in pharmaceutical product development or providing IT support for product development at Roche, around 1800 are located in Switzerland, and about 100 of these Swiss positions are anticipated to be affected by the cost reduction measures, the muula.ch website said.