CORK’S PHARMACEUTICAL sector suffered another jobs blow yesterday when GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced it is to lay off 121 staff from its 460 strong workforce at its plant at Currabinny in Cork Harbour.
Some 55 of the redundancies are as a result of a formal business review by the company which has been ongoing since May 2010 while a further 66 jobs are being lost as a result of changes to shift patterns at the Cork plant.
GSK vice-president and Cork site director Finbar Whyte said the 121 redundancies were designed to ensure the company remains competitive in response to changing market situations and represented “the best strategic route for the Cork site and for GSK overall”.
Mr Whyte confirmed the reductions would take place among the 370 staff employed at the company’s manufacturing operations at Currabinny. He said 90 staff working at the site’s research and development facility would not be affected by the cuts.
The company is in consultation with trade unions and employee representatives and no timeframe had been finalised for the lay-offs at the plant which has been in existence since the 1970s and which saw employment numbers peak at over 650 in 2006/2007.
Yesterday’s announcement followed staff briefings by management on activity levels and the continuing decline in demand for some of the company’s products which led in February 2008 to a cost containment programme at the Cork plant.
Last week the European Medicines Agency recommended that GSK’s diabetes drug Avandia be withdrawn from the Irish and European markets because of concerns about the drug’s links with heart attacks while the drug is also under review by the Federal Drugs Administration in the US.
Currabinny is the sole manufacturing site within GSK for the active ingredient for Avandia, rosiglitazone, but it is understood that the plant had already frozen production of the active ingredient since 2008 because there were sufficient stockpiles to meet falling demand.
Two years ago when announcing 100 job cuts at the plant which then had 500 staff, Mr Whyte confirmed falling sales globally for some of the plant’s other products including anti-depressant Seroxat, congenital heart treatment Coreg and Parkinson’s disease medicine Requip.
In November 2008, GSK unveiled a new breast cancer therapy, Lapatinib, which was to be manufactured only at Currabinny but production of the drug is not expected to ramp up in the immediate future.
Local Cork South Central Fine Gael Senator Jerry Buttimer described the announcement as “a devastating blow for the local community” while Cork South Central Fine Gael TD Deirdre Clune said it highlighted Government inaction on Ireland’s competitiveness problems.
Cork Chamber CEO Conor Healy said that while the news of the job losses at GSK was very disappointing, it was important to remember the move was being made to ensure the plant remained competitive and put in a better position with regard to its longterm future. Less than a month ago, pharmaceutical firm Schering-Plough said it would lay off 160 staff at its plant at Brinny near Innishannon in west Cork.