Allergan Plans to Cut Over 1,000 Jobs Amid Drug Competition

(Bloomberg) -- Allergan Plc said it plans to cut more than 1,000 jobs as it braces for one of its best-selling drugs to face generic competition.

Chief Executive Officer Brent Saunders said in November that the company was preparing as though a generic version of Restasis, a dry-eye treatment, would launch in the beginning of 2018. That would require cost cuts, Saunders said at the time. 

“I hate to say that we know how to take costs out of the business, but we do,” Saunders said in November. “We will be implementing something as soon as we complete our planning. But rest assured, we will do it rapidly.”

The cuts would mostly come from parts of the business that are facing new competition, the drugmaker said in a securities filing on Wednesday.

Allergan attempted last year to shield Restasis from one type of patent challenge through an unconventional deal with a Native American tribe, but a judge later ruled the patents were invalid on scientific grounds. 

The company is appealing the judge’s ruling. Restasis is Allergan’s second-best-selling drug. In 2016, it generated sales of $1.49 billion, or about 10 percent of the drugmaker’s revenue. A generic version has yet to be approved by U.S. regulators.

After the news of the job cuts, Allergan shares climbed about 1 percent to $171.99 as of 12:10 p.m. in New York.

To contact the reporter on this story: Cynthia Koons in New York at ckoons@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Drew Armstrong at darmstrong17@bloomberg.net, Timothy Annett

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