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Oct 23, 2024

Massachusetts' largest pharmaceutical company is laying off employees again

By Beth Treffeisen Takeda, a Japanese pharmaceutical company with US headquarters in Cambridge, has announced the latest of several rounds of layoffs it’s been conducting this year, bringing the total

By Beth Treffeisen

Takeda, a Japanese pharmaceutical company with US headquarters in Cambridge, has announced the latest of several rounds of layoffs it’s been conducting this year, bringing the total to nearly 1,000 employees.

On Friday, Takeda notified the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce that it is laying off 79 employees in September. The layoffs include 45 at Takeda’s Cambridge site and 34 at its Lexington site. The layoffs could be ongoing through March.

This will raise the number of employees Takeda is laying off to 940 this year and next. However, the latest round represents the smallest amount of layoffs the company has disclosed within the past year.

In May, the company said it was laying off 641 employees in the state, including 495 in Cambridge and 146 in Lexington. In late June, the company reported to the state it was cutting 189 more jobs in Cambridge and 31 in Lexington.

In a statement, Takeda said the cuts are part of a multi-year efficacy program it announced in May to ensure the company is “best positioned for growth.”

The initiative is centered on maximizing the company’s late-stage pharmaceutical pipeline and the success of its growth portfolio of patient therapies, the company stated.

At the first quarterly meeting on July 31, Christopher Weber, president and CEO of Takeda, said the program is focused on three areas of opportunity: increasing organizational agility, improving procurement savings, and strengthening the company’s use of data and digital technology.

“Our progress on this program is on track,” Weber said at the meeting. “We took concrete steps to improve organizational agility, for example, in R&D (research and development) and in our U.S. commercial organization.”

At the quarterly meeting in May, Weber said that despite “significant generic headwinds” due to the loss of exclusivity of its ADHD drug Vyvanse in the U.S., new developments are on the horizon.

The company is working on three recently approved drugs from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and plans to have up to six new programs in late development this year.

“So, our long-term outlook is bright,” Weber said.

In fiscal year 2023, the company reported revenue of 4.263 billion yen, or around 28 billion dollars, an increase of 5.7% from the previous year.

Takeda has more than 5,700 employees in Massachusetts.

“We are confident that we will remain the largest life science employer in the state, with Cambridge serving as our global hub for Takeda as we prepare for continued growth,” the company’s statement said.

However, according to The Boston Globe, in Massachusetts, the layoffs resulted in the loss of a $1.87 million tax break from Gov. Maura Healey’s administration and the quasi-public Massachusetts Life Sciences Center. Last year, Takeda pledged to create 125 jobs in Lexington in exchange for the tax break.

The Globe reported that the state took back the award in February after the company said it could not fulfill the pledge.

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Beth Treffeisen is a general assignment reporter for Boston.com, focusing on local news, crime, and business in the New England region.

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