Rumors of massive layoffs have been circulating since April. While the Basel-based based drugmaker has acknowledged the plans in dribbles, up to now it has not named a figure.

The headquarters site in Basel is expected to bear the brunt of the pare-down, as CEO Vas Narasimhan acknowledged that some 1,400 of the approximately 11,000 Swiss job are on the line. The initial goal of the restructuring was to save at least $1 billion a year by 2024, the CEO said earlier.

A Novartis spokesman told US trade journal Fierce Pharma that the layoffs will allow it to reduce duplications of business structures in every country and at the same time make Novartis "leaner and simpler.” Along with shedding staff, the plans are aid to foresee eliminating positions.

Parallel to the company’s April announcement that it would 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, Novartis at the time confirmed Swiss media reports that this could mean the loss of thousands of jobs.

The pharma giant is additionally is combining its technical operations and customer & technology solutions units into what it said would be a standalone "operations" unit. Most of the leadership teams for this have apparently been filled.

As another harbinger of significant change, Novartis recently appointed former Bernstein analyst Ronny Gal as head of M&A as well as chief strategy and growth officer. Narasimhan has hinted that the company is eying deals worth as much a $2 billion.

Novartis said earlier that it expect the new structure to be fully in place and operational by the end of 2022. So far, it has left unanswered the question of whether it plans to hang onto generics subsidiary Sandoz or divest it.

At the end of 2021, the drugmaker had 41,280 employees working in sales and nearly 12,800 in operations and 4,727 in general and administration.

Author: Dede Williams, Freelance Journalist