Layoffs from the staff of Novartis Services, Novartis Pharmaceuticals and Novartis Corporation in East Hanover will take effect from Jan. 29 according to a local Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice.

Affected divisions include the company’s former Pharmaceuticals and Oncology divisions, certain functions of Global Drug Development and business units that were part of Customer Technology.

Additionally, employees in communications, compliance, finance, legal and other units are due to face the axe, as outlined in Novartis’ April 2022 announcement that it planned to merge its pharmaceuticals and oncology businesses into a new unit called Innovative Medicines (IM) and at the same time create separate US and International commercial organizations.

The Swiss drugmaker said it would support staff faced with layoffs with help to include finding new jobs and obtaining career counseling or new positions.

Five ophthalmic drugs to be sold to Harrow

In other US news, Novartis has agreed to sell the rights to five ophthalmic drugs (four of them spray) to US pharma Harrow for $130 million upfront, with $45 million to be paid out if one of them is a market hit.

The five FDA-approved products are Ilevro and Nevanac to relieve eye inflammation in after cataract surgery, Vigamox to treat bacterial conjunctivitis, Maxidex, a steroid eye drop for inflammation and Triesence, an injection for treatment of certain ophthalmic diseases.

Author: Dede Williams, Freelance Journalist