Roughly 500 jobs to go at Pfizer's Kent site

Around 500 jobs are set to go at pharma giant Pfizer's Kent site.

The pharmaceuticals company confirmed to Sky News that they are to be cut as Pfizer is discontinuing its pharmaceutical sciences small molecule (PSSM) operations at Sandwich in Kent. Pfizer said it was part of a company-wide cost-cutting program.

Affected staff were notified in a brief announcement on Tuesday morning and employee redundancy consultation will take place over the coming 45 days, according to a Pfizer staff member who worked in the PSSM unit.

It was understood that staff will attend work and are expected to be given notice of their exit date in January.

Of the 500 job losses. most are scientist roles though administrative roles are also being lost as the PSSM unit makes medicine for clinical trials and helps scale up production of new drugs.

Sky said it was understood the roles will be moved to other PSSM sites in Chennai, India and Connecticut in the US, and staff being made redundant at the Sandwich site will work to transition projects to those locations.

Neither vaccines nor Covid-19 drugs such as Paxlovid are being worked on by the discontinued Sandwich operation. Mostly tablets and some intravenous drugs are worked on there, the Pfizer staff member told Sky.

The majority of staff were surprised at the announcement, the staff member said.

While job cuts were expected they thought 20% to 30% of the unit could be culled, rather than the entire PSSM operation in Sandwich, Sky said.

A Pfizer spokesperson told Sky: "Various areas of Pfizer's global enterprise are making changes to operate more efficiently and effectively.

"These changes will be implemented on a rolling basis and will differ area to area."