Merck & Co. (MRK.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Wednesday said five of its manufacturing and research facilities in the United Kingdom and Japan are among the sites the drug maker plans to sell or close as part of a restructuring announced on Monday. Merck also confirmed a report, published on Tuesday, that it will close, sell or scale back operations at its manufacturing plants in Georgia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Canada. The restructuring is meant to cut 7,000 jobs, or 11 percent of Merck’s work force, and produce accrued cost savings of up to $4 billion through 2010. Company spokeswoman Amy Rose said the company will close by late 2006 a plant in Okazaki, Japan, that makes the antibiotic Tienam. The drug will be produced at other Merck facilities. Rose said a center at Okazaki and one in Menuma, Japan, that both conduct preclinical research on experimental drugs will be closed at the end of March 2006. The operations, part of Merck’s Banyu subsidiary, involve research conducted on drugs before they are actually tested in people. She said a manufacturing plant in Enfield, North London, is slated to be closed or sold by the end of 2006 and that plans also call for closure of Merck’s neuroscience research center in Harlow, England. She said the two U.K. facilities have a total of 330 employees. The company expects to close a plant by the end of 2006 in Albany, Georgia, which has about 350 employees and makes the active ingredient of Merck’s cholesterol fighter Zocor and other medicines, Rose said. Merck plans to sell its Danville, Pennsylvania, plant by 2008, she said, noting it has 430 employees and makes the active ingredients of a number of Merck drugs. The company will cease manufacturing operations in early 2006 at a plant in Kirkland, Quebec, Rose said. The move is part of a plan to eliminate 235 jobs across Canada from Merck’s Canadian unit, Merck Frosst Canada, most by the end of this year. The Kirkland plant makes an older cholesterol drug, Mevacor, and two treatments for high blood pressure. Merck on Tuesday said it plans to also end long-term manufacturing operations at its plant in Rahway, New Jersey, by early 2007, but that the site will continue to be a major research operation.
