Job cuts at Lundbeck and DSM

Specialist brain disease drugmaker Lundbeck and materials and life sciences firm DSM are both cutting staff in major restructuring efforts to cut costs and improve profitability. Each company will remove around 1000 employees by 2017.

Lundbeck’s cuts will primarily hit its European operations, further centralising general corporate and administrative functions in Poland. Some early-stage R&D projects will also be terminated.

Around half of DSM’s projected 900–1100 cuts will be in the Netherlands, affecting ‘support functions’ such as finance, legal and IT. The company will also implement ‘efficiency measures’ in its global R&D centres.

At the same time, DuPont spin-off Chemours is closing its titanium dioxide manufacturing facilities in Edge Moor and one production line in New Johnsonville, US. The Edge Moor plant employs 330 people, including 130 contractors, who will be redeployed or made redundant. Chemours is rationalising its TiO₂ production to its four most cost-effective sites in Mississippi, Tennessee, Mexico and Taiwan.