Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Schering-Plough Cutting Costs

Well, it didn't take SGP long to get out the Ax and start chopping.

The cuts will disproportionately hit the United States and will include everything from plant consolidations and streamlining of management to trimming overhead and spending on research and development, Chief Executive Officer Fred Hassan said in a conference call Wednesday evening.

He said the plan calls to reduce headcount by 10 percent worldwide and the goal is to make 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in total cuts by the end of 2010, with the rest by 2012. Schering-Plough currently has 55,000 employees, including 8,000 in New Jersey.

These cuts cannot come too soon but I think the company might be wounded severely unless they can come though on their pipeline. Most of the good stuff is only in phase II and only the anti-rhumatoid arthritus (golimumab) sounds like something that might hit the bottom line in the near future. I wonder if we will be seeing some single digits in this stock before too long?

No comments: