SkyePharma mulls 30% cuts at Lyon Geomatrix plant
The firm, which initiated a consultation process with the facility’s 129 employees late last week, hopes that the proposed move will improve competitiveness and save it around approximately €1.8m ($2.3m) a year in operating costs.
SkyPharma CFO Peter Grant told in-PharmaTechnologist that: “The factory has been owned by SkyePharma for many years primarily as a means of providing customers with a supplier for tablets designed using our Geomatrix technology.
“Whilst this technology has been a success and has resulted in 10 approved products on the market today, we have found that Big Pharma tends to prefer to manufacture the products themselves, which means that our Lyon factory is dealing with smaller customers who tend to take longer to achieve substantial market penetration,” explained Grant.
He stressed that the current difficult global climate had not played any part in the proposed cutbacks and could not say how long the employee consultation period will take to complete.
SkyePharma’s controlled-release Geomatrix technology uses multilayered tablets composed of hydrophilic polymers like hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) and a surface barrier layer.
Geomatrix has already been used in a number of products such as Sciele’s Sular, Critical Therapeutics’ Zyflo CR, Roche’s Madopar DR and, most recently, Nitec’s rheumatoid arthritis treatment Lodotra.
In a press statement, company CEO Ken Cunningham commented that: "We regret the need to propose this potential reduction in the workforce at our French manufacturing operations and, following consultation, intend to implement an appropriate social plan to assist any employees affected.
“However, changes are essential to ensure that we have the correct staffing for the forecast levels of demand. We will continue to constrain cash utilisation to ensure that we meet our goal of retaining cash resources that are sufficient to enable SkyePharma to reach its target of sustainable profitability," he added.
