Global drugmaker Pfizer Inc. is expected to make cuts — perhaps eliminating 200 jobs or more — at a Sanford gene therapy facility after a clinical trial failed for a muscular dystrophy treatment, people familiar with the company’s plans told WRAL on Friday. It would be the latest in a series of recent pullbacks by the company in the region.
The Sanford facility has produced gene therapy products for the neuromuscular disease and two types of hemophilia. The failed muscular dystrophy trial prompted discussions about the cuts, which could equate to slightly more than 10% of the company’s Sanford headcount, according to people familiar with the potential cuts. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the company’s plans.
It was unclear late Friday whether the layoffs would happen all at once or be phased in over time. Pfizer recently
won FDA approval for a hemophilia treatment. It was unclear whether that approval would have any impact on Sanford operations.
Steve Danehy, a Pfizer spokesman, said late Friday that the Sanford site isn’t closing and that the company remains committed to the city. Pfizer is currently expanding certain facilities in Sanford, he said. “However, in light of the recent disappointing results in our Ciffreo Duchene muscular dystrophy trial, we can’t rule out future changes to staffing based on the expected demands of our business,” he said in an emailed statement.
Early last year, the New York-based company employed at least 4,000 workers in North Carolina and had invested at least $1.4 billion in the state. It had been expanding in Lee County, spending at least $600 million on gene therapy facilities in Sanford over the past decade. Pfizer also has a plant in Rocky Mount, a massive facility that makes 25% of the company’s injectable medications.
In 2017, Pfizer pledged to invest $100 million in its Sanford facilities after it
acquired Bamboo Therapeutics Inc., a private Chapel Hill company founded by UNC researchers, focused on gene therapies for people with diseases related to neuromuscular conditions.
State grants were tied to those expansions. WRAL was unable to determine the status of those grants late Friday.
Federal law requires that companies file what’s called a WARN notice to provide employees and communities a heads-up about closings and mass layoffs. The state Department of Commerce hadn’t received such a notice as of late Friday, according to David Rhoades, a department spokesman. In recent months, Pfizer has been shutting facilities elsewhere in the Triangle as part of a broader cost-slashing effort. The company said in October that it would
close facilities in Durham and Morrisville as part of a company-wide realignment.
The company’s stock price has dropped about 30% on the New York Stock Exchange in the past year. Shares tumbled in early trading Thursday following news of the muscular dystrophy trial before bouncing back later in the day. The stock closed at $27.53 on Friday.
News of the Pfizer plans comes as Lee County is on an economic hot streak. The county’s unemployment now sets near
near a 20-year low.
This week, Japanese pharmaceutical company Kyowa Kirin said it planned to
more than double its investment in Sanford. The company said this week that its board approved plans to invest up to $530 million for what would be its first North American manufacturing facility. That’s up from its initial plans to invest $200 million.
