Merck To Lay Off 360 R&D Employees

(RTTNews) - Merck & Co. (MRK) has announced plans to cut about 360 R&D workers from three East Coast sites and to close one R&D facility.

According to WSJ, Merck's latest effort to reorganize its R&D section would result in job cuts and some employee transfers that would affect less than 10% of employees in Kenilworth, New Jersey; Rahway, New Jersey; and North Wales, Pennsylvania.

The latest layoffs and restructure would enable Merck to curb some increasing costs. Several other large drugmakers including Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline have also cut R&D spending or reorganized research units recently.

The report cites that Merck spokeswoman said the company is making the changes to allow it to have "earlier access to emerging external science and technology to augment our leading discovery and development capabilities."

Meanwhile, Merck is also planning to open new laboratories in Cambridge, MA and San Francisco.