Recently, in the aftermath of Amgen’s substantial $27.8 billion acquisition of Horizon, unveiled in December and finalized this month, these questions have been answered swiftly. Approximately 350 former Horizon employees have received word this week that their roles will be phased out if there is a redundancy with existing Amgen teams, according to a company spokesperson.
The process of separation is set to commence on December 30 of this year and will span until December 2024, as confirmed by the company. Remarkably, over 80% of former Horizon employees in the United States will be transitioned into Amgen positions, a testament to their expertise and abilities required to continue addressing patients afflicted by rare diseases, as emphasized by the spokesperson.
It’s worth noting that Horizon primarily operated within the United States, shifting its corporate headquarters to Ireland following the acquisition of Vidara Therapeutics in 2014, valued at $600 million.
This series of layoffs marks Amgen’s continuation of cost-saving measures for the year, which included reducing 300 positions in January and a further 450 in May, attributing these moves to the escalating pressures of rising drug prices and inflation. Entering the year, Amgen’s employee count stood at over 25,000.
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With the Horizon acquisition, Amgen’s global workforce now encompasses around 26,700 individuals, as confirmed by the company’s spokesperson.
In the biopharmaceutical sector, post-acquisition workforce reductions have become somewhat of an expectation. Just this month, Biogen culled 113 positions at Reata Pharmaceuticals shortly after finalizing its $7.3 billion acquisition of the Texas-based rare disease specialist. Similarly, Biogen had already initiated a cost-reduction initiative, resulting in a company-wide restructuring and the elimination of 1,000 jobs.
This trend extends to other companies, with CSL revealing plans to release 85 employees shortly after closing its $11.7 billion acquisition of Vifor last year. In a similar vein, Gilead Sciences announced the intention to lay off over 100 staff members at Immunomedics’ former headquarters earlier in 2022, following the completion of a $21 billion acquisition of the company.
Moreover, Merck followed suit in 2022, releasing a group of Acceleron employees in Cambridge, Massachusetts, mere months after finalizing an $11.5 billion deal to acquire the Boston-based rare disease specialist.
