S-P cuts staff as competition bites
manufacturing plant in Brinny, Ireland, in the face of stiff
competition to two of the firm's biologic drugs.
Ireland's Fine Gael party said that the decision reflected the increasing cost of doing business in the country caused by the Fianna Fail/Progressive Democrat government's "massive increase in stealth taxes and charges imposed on industry." This is having a damaging effect on Ireland's competitiveness, it claimed, allowing it to lose out to new competitors in Asia and Eastern Europe.
Some 170 jobs will go at the plant, reducing staff levels to 762. The reduction in jobs is due to a decrease in demand for the company's main product, coupled with the recently set target by S-P of a 10 per cent reduction in payroll expenses worldwide.
Colman Casey, the company's managing director said that the cuts have been caused by a fall in sales - and a 50 per cent drop in market share for the company's anticancer and antiviral medicines, Intron A (interferon alpha-2b) and PEG-Intron (peginterferon alpha).
Both products have been affected by competition from Swiss major Roche, which markets Roferon (interferon alpha-2a) and recently introduced a long-acting version called Pegasys (peginterferon alpha-2a)
S-P has indicated that it needs to achieve the job reductions within three months.
