Roche plans to reduce staff at two of its manufacturing facilities, one in Vacaville, California, and one in Kaiseraugst, Switzerland.

The company will cut 130 workers from its biologics manufacturing plant in Vacaville, California by the end of 2017. The company said that it is making this organizational change due to current and anticipated production requirements and shift-schedule adjustments.

The company will cut an additional 235 jobs from its site in Kaiseraugst, Switzerland, which currently hosts quality control and packaging for small-molecule drugs as well as information technology. The staff reductions will mainly occur in 2019 and beyond. The Kaiseraugst site currently has approximately1,600 employees.

The reductions are due to changes in which the company will handle packaging. Roche said that in the future it expects to handle the packaging of each product at the site at which it is produced. The company said it will move packaging from the Kaiseraugst site to other locations. For chemically produced medicines, the Kaiseraugst site will focus on the production and market introduction of new, specialized products in smaller volumes. Roche said despite this necessary adjustment, Basel/Kaiseraugst remains one of its most important production sites globally.

Source: Roche