Come November, Novartis will lose more than 100 workers in another round of layoffs, which have become more frequent at the company over the last year as it focuses on restructuring its operations.

According to a New Jersey state WARN Notice, the company will eliminate 103 positions in clinical operations at its headquarters in East Hanover, where about 4,100 staff members work.

In a statement to HCB News, the company said that the job cuts would “enable consistency and coordination across geographies and address an industry-wide trend of increasing life cycle and trial costs in developing new medicines.”

In early January, the company laid off 285 employees at its East Hanover site in commercialization, drug development, and corporate operations, according to NJBiz.

It previously announced, in October 2022, that it was evolving its approach to clinical operations to speed up trial recruitment and enhance trial delivery.

Rumors of layoffs began in April 2022, with the company confirming the news in June of that year as part of a restructuring plan that would combine various departments together. As a result, it said 8,000 jobs would be eliminated worldwide, about 7% of its workforce, with cuts primarily in sales and marketing, operations, and general and administration.

At the time, this included 1,400 positions at its headquarters, the Basel campus in Switzerland, including 250 in marketing and product management, 550 in operations, and 600 in central administration, as well as others in IT, procurement, quality control, and global production management. With its plan, Novartis said it expected to save at least $1 billion a year by 2024.

Additionally, the company is spinning off its generics and biosimilars unit, Sandoz, and announced this month that the separation would be completed on or around early October, reported Reuters, allowing it to focus on innovative medicines.

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