Dive Brief:
- Pfizer will lay off 151 employees at its Pearl River, New York facility, continuing its roll back of vaccine manufacturing at the plant and bringing to a close a restructuring first announced six years ago.
- The layoffs will affect 48 union employees and 103 non-union workers, according to a WARN notice posted with the New York Department of Labor.
- Pfizer expects the cuts to be completed by October 28 of this year.
Dive Insight:
Originally run by Wyeth before Pfizer acquired that company in 2009, the Pearl River facility was the target of a global restructuring announced in 2010. At that time, Pfizer said it would shut down biotechnology manufacturing at the site, as well as halt production of consumer healthcare products there.
Pfizer had made its Prevnar vaccine at the site, along with some oncology products. With these most recent layoffs, Pfizer is wrapping up its shutdown of vaccine production there. A small production group for oncology will remain, along with a larger R&D team, together totaling around 700 employees, according to a Pfizer spokeswoman
Production of the Prevnar vaccines has already shifted elsewhere, including to plants in Andover, MA and Pfizer's Grange Castle site in Clondalkin, Ireland.
Pfizer has been shifting its manufacturing capacity recently, announcing it would close a production facility in Boulder, Colorado last month. It has also been laying the groundwork to expand its Grange Castle operations and broke ground on a new clinical manufacturing facility in Andover, Massachusetts in June.