Print
Email
Print Edition Stories
Live Coverage from Bio 2008: June 17, 2008
At a time when many pharmaceutical companies are being forced to cut costs and reduce their work force, Millennium Pharmaceuticals is adding jobs, saying it plans to increase its head count by 30 percent, adding up to 300 people by the end of the year.
Most of the new staff is expected to be on the scientific side and will likely be recruited from the Greater Boston area, said Stephen Gansler, senior vice president of human resources at Millennium.
Millennium CEO Deborah Dunsire told Mass High Tech last week that the hiring is a result of its acquisition in May by Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.
“With (Takeda) putting their pipeline into Millennium’s, it is out of necessity. When we add about 20 compounds onto our pipeline, we have to take on, what is for us, a huge increase in people,” Dunsire said.
The news comes at a time when pharma giants such as Pfizer Inc., Amgen Inc. and Schering-Plough Inc. have made drastic cuts. Schering-Plough announced plans to cut 5,500 jobs in April after questions were raised about its cholesterol-lowering drug, Vytorin. Amgen dropped 2,500 employees last year.
But Millennium is adding people as it takes on all of the oncology drug candidates from Japan’s largest pharmaceutical firm. Millennium — now branded as Millennium: the Takeda Oncology Co. — was acquired by the Japanese health-care giant in May for $8.8 billion in cash. Takeda Pharmaceutical has a long history in health, initially founded in 1781 as a supplier of herbal medicines.
Millennium now employs about 1,000 workers, the majority of whom are based out of its Cambridge headquarters. While Millennium has had a high revenue-generating drug, Velcade, on the market for a number of years, its product pipeline has yielded no new drugs approved to date. But things at Millennium are going to get a whole lot busier, and quickly.
Takeda’s stated plan is to use Millennium’s expertise in oncology to develop all of its anti-cancer drugs. It is a strategy that would place Millennium among the top three oncology-focused biotech companies in the world by 2020, according to Dunsire, who discussed the company’s plans at the Drug Discovery, Development and Technology conference in Boston last week.
Millennium is now staffing up as a result. In addition to the scientific staff, Millennium will add general and administrative positions, physicians and medical affairs workers, said Gansler.
Takeda keeps a promise
Takeda’s purchase came at a fortuitous time for Millennium. The company had cut its staff by 14 percent in 2006 after reporting four straight years of significant losses on nearly a half a billion dollars in revenue each year. Through major reductions in its operating costs, Millennium saw a sea change in 2007, reporting $14 million in net profit.
From the beginning, Takeda said it was steadfast in supporting job growth in the Boston area and to expanding Millennium in general, according to Robert Coughlin, president of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council.
“The news that there is job growth taking place at Millennium is great because Takeda made that commitment when they purchased the company. Creating jobs in a challenging economy and helping patients worldwide — what is better than that?” Coughlin said.
Ramping up for Velcade
The company will also seek to expand its sales force in anticipation of revenue growth from its wildly successful Velcade, the world’s first proteasome inhibitor, which blocks certain enzymes to induce cell death in tumors. Velcade was recently approved for another indication — newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients — and researchers are continuing to investigate the product in other indications. For example, it is expected to enter Phase 3 clinical trials for inflammatory bowel disease in the next few months, one of many conditions being explored.
Millennium reported $528 million in Velcade sales in 2007. Approved in 85 countries, Velcade is predicted to reach blockbuster status — revenue of $1 billion per year — by the end of 2008, according to the company.
Gansler went on to say that although no specific plans have been finalized, expanding the company’s facilities is also on the horizon.
“We are still in the process of getting our arms around the type of space we are going to need, whether it is additional office space or labs. Right now, we are still in the data-gathering process,” he said.
RSS Feeds
Comments
Please Login/Register to post comments.
No comments have been added or approved.