Eisai’s cuts will affect 121 employees across the Japanese company’s U.S. operations, including 57 people at its American headquarters in Nutley, New Jersey. A company spokesperson said the pharma remains fully committed to the U.S. market.
As part of a strategic restructuring, Tokyo-based Eisai is cutting 6.8% of its U.S. workforce, primarily in its commercial, medical and corporate functions, a company spokesperson told BioSpace Thursday via email. The move, which will affect 121 employees, is part of the pharma’s strategy to improve operations and ensure long-term sustainability, according to the spokesperson.
Eisai’s cuts include letting go 57 employees from its U.S. headquarters in Nutley, New Jersey, with those layoffs effective starting March 31 and wrapping up May 30, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice. The company spokesperson did not specify which other locations the workforce reduction will affect, but Eisai has U.S. operations at sites in Baltimore, Exton, Pennsylvania and Raleigh, North Carolina.
Regarding its U.S. business moving forward, the spokesperson said that “Eisai remains fully committed to the U.S. market and will continue to serve the needs of patients and their families, particularly in addressing unmet medical needs in areas such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and other neurological conditions.”
The layoff news comes about a month after the FDA approved a monthly maintenance dosing regimen for Eisai and Biogen’s Alzheimer’s disease treatment Leqembi (lecanemab), which could boost the anti-amyloid therapy’s slow sales. In November, Eisai adjusted down its Leqembi sales forecast for fiscal year 2024, dropping it from its previous guidance of approximately $370 million to $280 million, and in February said it was “on track” to meet that new goal. Specifically, the pharma’s earnings announcement noted that during the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal year, which ran from October to December 2024, Leqembi’s U.S. revenue was ¥7.7 billion ($51 million), representing about 30% quarter-on-quarter growth.
Leqembi received FDA approval as the first anti-amyloid antibody for Alzheimer’s in mid-2023 in one of that summer’s most highly anticipated regulatory decisions. Challenges since then have included not only slow sales but also the European Union’s health regulatory agency in July 2024 issuing a negative opinion on the drug, noting that its benefit did not outweigh the risk of “serious side events.” The agency reversed course a few months later in November and issued a positive opinion.
