The job cuts, which were announced in an US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing late yesterday, could cost the US healthcare major as much as $970m (€724m) over the next two years.
Abbott, which bought Solvay’s pharma business for $6.2bn, did not say how many employees would be made redundant, but most observers believe that up to 3,000 people, or 3 per cent of the firm’s workforce, would be affected
Company Spokesman Scott Stoffel told Reuters the “vast majority” of the cuts would be made at Solvay sites, including 500 at its facility in Weesp in the Netherlands and 300 in Hannover Germany.
He added that the cutbacks are “designed to eliminate redundancies in research and development, manufacturing and commercial operations,” but did not provide any further details.
Abbott also plans to shut down the former Solvay unit’s US headquarters in Marietta, Georgia by the end of next year as part of the wider restructuring and integration effort.
Vacc unit integration
The announcement of job cuts follows just a few weeks after Abbott abandoned plans to sell off the vaccine development business it gained with the Solvay acquisition after determining it was in its best interest "to retain it and integrate it into the company."
Quite how today's news will impact the vaccines unit is unclear although, given Abbott's previous efforts to sell and decision to focus the cutbacks in Europe and failure, it would not be too much of a surprise if the unit sees some workforce reduction.