Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer will cut more jobs across its Irish operations as the company continues to struggle with a decline in post-pandemic sales.
It is understood that 210 jobs will be impacted by the move, with these plans set to impact staff across Ringaskiddy in Cork[/url}, Grange Castle in west Dublin and Newbridge in Kildare.
Some of the redundancies will happen by the end of 2024, with all jobs to be cut by the end of 2025.
Pfizer currently employs around 5,000 people across Ireland, with its planned cuts set to impact just over 4% of its Irish workforce.
The job losses are the second to impact Irish staff in the past 12 months, with Pfizer slashing 100 people from its Newbridge site in November last year following a collapse in sales of its Covid medication.
A spokesperson for the company said it is “actively engaging with colleagues and their representatives, and all job-related decisions will be made with transparency, respect, and in compliance with all applicable laws.”
“Reducing jobs is always the very last resort and we have been doing all we can to reduce costs elsewhere and minimize the impact on our people.”
The spokesperson said that Pfizer had recently launched a multi-year, multi-phased programme designed to assess the efficiency of its manufacturing focused on finding operational efficiencies to increase productivity within the network.
As part of that process, a reduction in the number of people supporting overall manufacturing operations across Ireland was proposed.
“These proposals impact colleagues across the Grange Castle, Ringaskiddy and Newbridge sites during the last quarter of 2024 and into 2025,” the spokesperson added.
First established more than 55 years ago, Pfizer said its Irish sites have played a “key role” in its global network, manufacturing several of its leading and newest medicines.
Despite the job cuts, the company said it is continuing to expand into Ireland, with construction underway for its $1.3bn investment into Grange Castle, which according to the company, is projected to create a substantial number of new roles at the site by 2027.
Pfizer has had mixed results in developing new sources of revenue to replace declining sales of its Covid vaccine.
Last year, it acquired a promising stable of cancer drugs in its $43bn acquisition of Seagen Inc, but its high-profile attempts to develop a pill to treat obesity have mostly fallen flat, making it more difficult for the company to compete with rivals Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.
