As part of a “broader, global strategic plan” to centralize control over its drug discovery programs and contain costs, Swiss drugmaker Novartis said it will close R&D sites in Switzerland and China and axe 175 research jobs.

Plans include reducing staff by 73 at the ESBATech facility near Zurich, while 18 jobs will go at Shanghai-based China biologics group. The bulk of activities concentrated at the older Shanghai site will be shifted to the company’s newly opened $1 billion campus in the Chinese city, where some 500 people work in its R&D facilities.

At the same time, the pharmaceutical giant, which employs around 120,000 people globally, also plans to set up two centers of excellence for biotherapeutic research in Basel, Switzerland, and Cambridge, UK.

In Asia, Novartis plans to merge its Singapore-based Institute for Tropical Diseases, which works on therapies for dengue fever and malaria, into its Emeryville, California, site attached to an existing hub for infectious disease research. This, it said, will enable scientists to work on this indication from one site.

Reports said the move of the key research site from the Asian city constitutes a blow to the efforts of the Singapore government to expand the pharmaceuticals sector and reduce dependence on electronics and petrochemicals. As a stimulus, Singapore has launched a five-year program of incentives to attract drugmakers, including research finance, tax breaks and new facilities.

Novartis’ new research strategy is said to be part of an overhaul conceived by James Bradner, who was named head of the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research last year. Another part of the drugmaker’s strategy includes the plans announced in August to close its cell and gene therapies unit and reintegrate the activities into the larger corporate organization.