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NEW YORK - Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant being buffeted by the loss of patent protection on its leading drugs, is to axe one-fifth of its European sales force as part of further cost cuts.
The company said yesterday that it was eliminating 8000 more jobs across the globe, on top of a 2000-strong reduction in its US sales force announced last year.
Jeff Kindler, who was installed as chief executive last July, said "fundamental change is imperative and it must start happening now".
Pfizer has been skewered by a combination of relentless downward pressure on drug prices in its main market, the US, and its inability to replace sales from blockbuster drugs that now face copycat competition.
Its planned successor to Lipitor, its best-selling cholesterol medicine, had to be scrapped in December after trials showed it was unsafe.
Job cuts in the UK are likely to run to several hundred, and although the country has escaped unscathed from the plant closures announced yesterday in the US, Japan, Germany and France, it could still be affected by a wide-ranging shake-up in research and development.
The cost cuts will save Pfizer about US$2 billion ($2.8 billion) by the end of next year.
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