Pierre Fabre will eliminate 551 jobs in its pharmaceutical branch – Les Echos

Pierre Fabre will eliminate 551 jobs in its pharmaceutical branch – Les Echos

The company eliminates 551 positions in R & amp; D and medical. It now focuses on three therapeutic areas

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For employees Laboratoires Pierre Fabre is a shock. Eighteen months after the death of its founder, the company will undergo its first major social plan. As part of a reorganization of its branch pharmacies, the group will remove 551 jobs in France, which employs 6,500 of the 10,000 em-ployees of the group. The group, which will increase from ten to six R & amp sites; D, will focus its research on Castres, Toulouse and Gaillac, in Midi-Pyrenees, Saint-Julien-en-Genevois Haute-Savoie. What takes this decision

Like most pharmaceutical companies, the company saw Castres productivity of its R & amp; A dive in recent years. “We are doing less well than other mid-sized laboratories, observes Bertrand Parmentier, Managing Director of Pierre Fabre SA. So they use two to four researchers per million euros invested, we are beyond the five. Where they have one or two R & amp sites; D, we have a dozen. And fixed costs represent 53% of the total, as we reach 70%. Finally, we are separated on too many therapeutic areas. “

A shortfall estimated at 174 million euros

In 2013, the group put on the market in the United States, with Actavis, an antidepressant, and this year a treatment of port wine stains (hemangioma) in infants in Europe and the US, but not its pipeline currently has four compounds in Phase I or II .dropoff window Not enough return on the € 160 million invested annually in R & amp; D. Neither renew in the coming years, a portfolio of over-ripe products. This product maturity penalize a group that makes 55% of its sales in France. Because the pressure on drug sales by the government focuses first on mature products. Where a shortfall estimated at 174 million euros between 2009 and 2014 for laboratory Castres. This is what decided the new leadership of Pierre Fabre Group to prepare a plan of reorganization of research and sales forces, presented Tuesday to the works councils pharmacy division and the holding company. In net, the plan should result in the elimination of 272 jobs by 2016 in resea rch, including 255 in France and 279 positions in the medical visit.

R & amp; D, financial stress is maintained, but it will now be spread over three therapeutic areas: oncology, central nervous system and dermatology. And every time a tailored approach. Cancer, for example, the laboratory confine to specific categories of disease, treated with a small number of specialists, which require that clinical trials small and limited sales forces.

In the central nervous system, research based in Castres, which should be the engine of innovation. “But the molecules will be sold licensed to partners at the end of Phase II, because clinical trials in this area are too long and expensive,” says Bertrand Parmentier. Finally, dermatology, teams basically find the molecules through external collaborations and will focus on the development part, their forte. Beyond attrition, so this is a change in the way work is expected of R & amp teams; D. An essential change to the survival of the group.

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