Dive Brief:
- Meda's Decatur, IL manufacturing site, snagged as part of Mylan's 2016 acquisition of the Swedish specialty pharma, will shut by 2018, the company confirmed to BioPharma Dive in an email.
- The site closing is part of a company-wide consolidation following a number of acquisitions, and Mylan anticipates that overall it will affect less than 10% of its 35,00-strong global workforce.
- The 90 employees affected in Decatur will receive severance pay and support.
Dive Insight:
Generics company Mylan completed its acquisition of Swedish specialty company Meda back in August 2016. The aim was to create a diversified global pharma company by bringing on board Meda's prescription and over-the-counter products in respiratory and dermatological disease and pain. This built on an existing commercial agreement for Mylan's adrenaline autoinjector, EpiPen.
As with many acquisitions, integrating the assets and workforce of another company almost inevitably leads to slimming down and restructuring, and the Mylan/Meda deal is no different.
"Since 2015, Mylan has made a number of significant acquisitions, and as part of the holistic, global integration of these acquisitions, we [will focus] on how to best optimize and maximize all of our assets across the organization and across all geographies," a Mylan spokesperson explain in an email. "We anticipate that less than 10% of our global workforce may be impacted by the actions we are taking across all geographies and businesses. [The Decatur] closure is part of the integration process announced in December of last year."
Mylan also has closed Meda's sales office in Somerset, NJ, and cut the workforce at sites in West Virginia, Washington, D.C., Vermont and North Carolina. Operations will continue at the Decatur, IL site for several months, with staffing reductions in phases, finally to be completed in 2018.
"All 90 affected employees will be offered severance packages that include severance pay, benefit continuation, and outplacement counseling and assistance according to the company’s severance plan. The products manufactured in Decatur will continue to be manufactured in the U.S."
Mylan has had a somewhat tumultuous few weeks. The Food and Drug Administration rejected Mylan's first attempt at gaining approval of a generic form of GlaxoSmithKline's top-selling inhaled asthma drug Advair (fluticasone/salmeterol), setting back its timeline for a potentially lucrative product launch.
Mylan also continues to be under scrutiny from Congress, being named in U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill's investigation into opioid manufacturers. Although, as it is ranked as number 17 in the top suppliers of opioids in the U.S., the company did express its surprise at being included in an email to BioPharma Dive.