Merck to shut New Jersey campus, shedding 113 jobs
pharmafile | August 8, 2013 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | Jobs, Merck, Schering-Plough, cuts
Merck & Co has followed through with an earlier threat to close down its manufacturing operations at Kenilworth, New Jersey.
The 113 workers at the plant have been given their notice and it is now expected that the facility will be entirely shut down by 1 October, with manufacturing operations now being transferred to other facilities in Merck’s network, notably its Cleveland plant in Tennessee.
The 100-acre facility at Kenilworth was formerly the site of the headquarters of Schering-Plough, which Merck acquired for $41 billion in 2009, and remains a key R&D unit for the group. Merck also said in January it intends to expand a biologics development unit at Kenilworth.
Manufacturing at the site has been under threat of closure since 2011, after Merck started to restructure its network of facilities around the world in the wake of the merger.
At the time of the takeover around 580 workers were involved in manufacturing at the site, once the restructuring is complete the total headcount at Kenilworth is expected to have shrunk from 2,600 people to around 1,500.
By the end of 2012 the company had reduced its global manufacturing network from 93 to 75 sites, and chief financial officer Peter Kellogg suggested earlier this year that additional cuts are also planned, though at a slower pace than in the previous three years.
That announcement was followed shortly after by the closure if a facility in Rathdrum, Ireland, with the loss of 280 jobs, and the sale of an active pharmaceutical ingredient production facility at Oss in the Netherlands to South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare for $1 billion.
It has not all been contraction, however, as Merck also opened a $120 million facility in China in April to make drugs for diabetes, cardiovascular, infectious, respiratory and bone diseases.
The pharma company officially informed state authorities of the Kenilworth redundancies towards the end of July, and is reported to be in discussions with potential buyers for several of the buildings associated with the manufacturing unit.
The remaining manufacturing units at the site were principally involved in the production of tablets and centred on a unit in Galloping Hill Road.
The notice came as Merck reported a 12% drop in revenues in the second quarter on the back of dwindling sales of its asthma treatment Singulair (montelukast).
Phil Taylor
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