Pfizer to Cut 2,400 Michigan Jobs

from WDIV Detroit TV 4

Pfizer Chairman and CEO Jeffery B. Kindler announced plans to make major cuts to improve the company's future. Pfizer Inc. will close its human health research and development facilities in Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo, affecting about 2,400 jobs. The Ann Arbor facility has about 2,100 employees. Also affected are approximately 250 workers in downtown Kalamazoo and another 60 in western Wayne County's Plymouth Township.

But the world's largest drugmaker will continue to maintain manufacturing and animal-health research operations in the Kalamazoo area, preserving about 3,800 jobs. Pfizer announced in March 2005 that it was closing a Holland manufacturing plant with 328 employees. About 60 people continue to work at the facility as it is being decommissioned.

New York-based Pfizer will also close manufacturing plants in New York and Nebraska as part of a plan to cut costs by up to $2 billion per year. About 10,000 jobs will be lost total. The restructuring is part of an effort by Pfizer to cut costs by up to $2 billion a year amid fierce competition from generic drugs.