GSK is trimming its R&D team, a move expected to affect fewer than 50 workers in the U.K. and fewer than 70 staffers in the U.S.
The ultimate number of cuts is still subject to change as the reorganization is finalized, but no more than 350 jobs total will be affected, a company spokesperson told Fierce. GSK’s overall R&D workforce stands at 12,000 employees, the spokesperson said.
“As we increase investment, we’re focused on allocating resources to these priorities and making sure we have the right people in the right teams,” GSK said in a statement to Fierce.
“Alongside this, we’re investing in technology to maximize our scientific capabilities and drive productivity, and in our key R&D sites over the next five years to accelerate drug discovery and research,” the Big Pharma continued.
In 2024, GSK invested 6.4 billion pounds sterling (about $8.7 billion today) in R&D, with plans to boost that budget as it continues its focus on delivering a pipeline of “new medicines with multi-blockbuster potential before 2031,” according to the company.
Since 2016, GSK has increased R&D investment by nearly 90%, the company has said.
The U.K. drugmaker is also zeroing in on the U.S., its biggest market, where it plans to invest the most. Over the next five years, GSK plans to infuse $30 billion into R&D and supply chain infrastructure across the U.S., the company’s spokesperson explained.
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The announcement comes a month into the tenure of GSK’s new CEO, Luke Miels, although the job cuts appear to be part of a previous, ongoing initiative.
Last July, the British pharma said it was laying off a “very limited number” of people from its global R&D team, which accounted for more than 12,000 people at the time. Shortly after, 150 jobs in Massachusetts were impacted as GSK transferred manufacturing work from a Cambridge facility to a Pennsylvania one, converting the Cambridge space into an R&D-only site.
Meanwhile, GSK is continuing to make big bets on innovation, even as it scales down portions of its R&D operations. The pharma paid $2.2 billion in January to buy Rapt Therapeutics and its anti-immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibody to protect against food allergy reactions.
