Roche to cut 4,800 jobs, sell Florence plant

News that Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche will sell its Florence facility leaves an uncertain future for the plant and its employees.

The company announced Wednesday it will cut 4,800 jobs over two years, mostly in the United States, to help save 2.4 billion Swiss francs ($2.4 billion) by 2012. U.S. locations will be hit hardest by Roche’s “Operational Excellence Program,” with some 3,550 jobs cut or moved elsewhere. Sites in Florence; Boulder, Colo.; Nutley, N.J.; Madison, Wis.; and Vacaville, South San Francisco and Oceanside in California will be affected, the company said.

Roche will seek a buyer with a strategic long-term interest in the Florence site’s development and manufacturing technologies and capabilities, Roche Carolina Community Affairs & Site Services Manager Pete Mazzaroni said. The sale will include all Roche Carolina facilities and infrastructure and the buyer will assume responsibility for the Roche Carolina work force. At this point, however, the company has not begun negotiations with any potential buyers.

“There are no buyers in mind,” Mazzaroni said. “The company wanted to talk to our employees first.”

The cuts amount to 6 percent of Roche’s 82,000-strong global work force and will mainly affect positions in sales, marketing and manufacturing, Basel-based Roche Holding AG said in a statement. Further, 1,500 jobs will be transferred to other locations within the company or outsourced, meaning a total of 6,300 positions will be affected.

So far, Mazzaroni said, there are no plans to transfer any of the Florence positions to other Roche sites.

“There’s nothing in the current restructuring plan that provides for the integration of any employees into other Roche sites,” he said.

What Roche’s new Operational Excellence Program, or restructuring, will mean for the Florence plant may not be known for months down the road, but the goal is for the next owner to keep it a viable plant well into the future. Officials don’t anticipate any major impact on individual employment at the Florence site until at least mid-2011, Mazzaroni said.

Roche announced the divestiture of the Florence facility to its employees Tuesday.

“The divestiture is not a reflection of the local work force or the assets in place,” Mazzaroni said, citing a global company press release. “Florence is, and we expect them to continue to be, an important provider of life-saving medicines.”

The decision is based on the company’s strategic direction and an over-capacity in the chemical manufacturing network, he said.

Roche will also cut or transfer 770 jobs in Switzerland, 1,300 in other European countries and 680 in the rest of the world.

“These measures are necessary to ensure sustained success of the company,” Roche CEO Severin Schwan said in a pres release. “We will make every effort to find socially responsible solutions for the employees affected.”

Established in Florence County in 1992, the pharmaceutical development and manufacturing facility has remained one of the region’s largest and most prominent employers at its East Old Marion Highway site, past Francis Marion University.

In April 2007, the company announced a $60 million investment that involved the construction of a new multi-purpose production unit in an existing manufacturing building. Commercial products currently manufactured at the site include Xeloda, an oncology drug, and Tamiflu, an anti-viral medication. Both are sold around the world.

The new owner is expected to sustain long-term capacity utilization at the Florence site through its own pipeline and/or by attracting third party business, Mazzaroni said.

“Performance expectations for the new owner include the capability to maintain high standards for environmental health, safety and quality,” he said.

Roche’s departure will leave a void in Florence County, but Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, said he and other leaders will do everything they can to keep the plant open and save jobs.

“What a great group of people that work out there. I know many, many of them and we’re going to make sure that we work awfully hard to make sure that that plant stays there, stays operating and providing jobs for those people,” Leatherman said.

“I’m optimistic we can do some things,” he said. “I met with some of the Roche people just this morning and we’re going to go to work and go to work hard and do everything we can. I believe that we’ll be able to put something together that will allow that plant to stay there and keep those jobs for our people.”