Amid $3.5B cost-cutting campaign, Pfizer to eliminate nearly 800 NJ positions (updated)

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Pfizer is planning a round of position cuts at its Gladstone facility, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filed with the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

The WARN notice lists that 791 positions will be affected by the cuts, effective Feb. 12, 2024.

The announcement was first disclosed by Fierce Pharma. According to the publication, a company representative told Fierce Pharma that many of the positions would be relocated to its headquarters.

According to a statement a Pfizer representative shared with NJBIZ, “Pfizer continually looks for ways to effectively utilize our workplace facilities and create a more vibrant and energetic work experience for our colleagues. Pfizer is in the process of closing its Peapack, New Jersey facility that will go in effect in early 2024. The vast majority of colleagues will be re-assigned to Pfizer’s New York headquarters at 66 Hudson Yards with a small portion transitioning to the company’s Parsippany, NJ site. This follows a previously communicated decision in 2021 of plans to sell the Peapack campus.”

Earlier, Fierce Pharma reported that New York-based Pfizer planned to cut its 2023 revenue projection by $9 billion, citing a drop in demand for COVID-19-related products.

During the pandemic, the three vaccines available to Americans were the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, as well as offerings from Moderna and New Brunswick-based Johnson & Johnson. Pfizer is also the developer of anti-viral drug Paxlovid, which can be used to treat COVID-19.

Pfizer’s planned cuts follow similar announcements from three other health care companies either based, or with a large presence, in New Jersey: CVS Health, Bristol Myers Squibb and Novartis, which all disclosed plans to reduce their workforces as part of larger restructuring efforts.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 3:32 p.m. ET to include a statement from Pfizer.

Updated: 11:34 a.m. Oct. 31, 2023:

The recent WARN notice comes a few weeks after Pfizer announced a sweeping $3.5 billion cost-cutting campaign amid weaker-than-expected sales of its COVID-19 vaccine and coronavirus treatment. As a result, the biotech cut its full-year revenue forecast by 13%, to between $58 billion and $61 billion – down from $67 billion and $70 billion.

Last year, Pfizer pulled in a record revenue of $100 billion, with $56 billion coming from the COVID vaccine it developed with BioNTech and antiviral coronavirus treatment Paxlovid.

It is also unclear how the company’s 83,000 workers worldwide will be impacted the cost reductions, but the company did say it expects to incur a one-time charge of $3 billion linked to its saving plan for 2023 and 2024, most of which would come from severance payments, according to a press release.

Pfizer recently announced cuts in Illinois and Colorado, as well as the closure of two facilities in North Carolina, to support a company-wide realignment, Fierce Pharma also reported.