The Big Pharma Recession Report

A recent study by PharmaIQ, "The Big Pharma Recession Report," (descargar) found that 44% of drug company executives are currently concerned about losing their jobs. Sadder still is the fact that this number is not even all that surprising. So relentless has been the recent flow of bad news, from all corners of the industry, that we have almost become numb to the numbers.

Abbott, Takeda and Novartis began 2012 with several thousand job cuts between them, while last month AstraZeneca confirmed it would cut 7,300 positions, having already announced plans to reduce its sales force by 24%.

Interestingly, the PharmaIQ study found that 60% of industry employees who are working in downsized departments reported that the same amount of work is now being done by fewer people.

One particular pharma function feeling the pinch is market research. TGaS Advisors reports that the in-house market research headcount has dropped sharply in the past year, while the workload per capita has continued to increase. The result, says Sanofi VP Todd Francis, is that "you become less able to think about what you need to be doing next and more focused on the questions that are being asked (by marketers)." And that's not good for a function charged with predicting things.