Orange County’s largest drug makers cut back on jobs during the past 12 months, according to this week’s Business Journal list.
The 12 drug makers on this year’s list, which is ranked by local employee count, said their OC employment fell 10% to 3,635 workers, down 411 positions from a year ago. A year earlier, the top 12 drug makers in the county posted an 8% job gain to 3,704 workers.
The decline was driven by big drops at No. 1 Irvine-based Allergan Inc., whose workers make up about 56% of the list’s total worker count, and No. 3 Valeant Pharmaceuticals International of Aliso Viejo.
Without the drops at Allergan and Valeant, the remaining 10 companies would have seen a 6% increase in employees to 1,413.
The list is due to get bigger in coming years as Dendreon Corp., a Seattle-based biotechnology company, is expected to soon outline plans for a major manufacturing operation in Seal Beach.
And Abraxis BioScience Inc., a Los Angeles biotechnology company, is spinning off Abraxis Health Inc. The personalized medicine company will be based in a Costa Mesa building that formerly housed Valeant Pharmaceuticals International. Abraxis said employees are set to move next year and that it expects to have up to 200 workers at Abraxis Health.
Allergan, the list’s perennial No. 1, continued its dominance on the list despite losing about 370 local workers in the past 12 months, according to the list.
In February, the company said it was laying off 460 workers, including 100 in OC. It now has 2,032 local workers.
The maker of eye drugs, medical cosmetics and Botox still has about two and a half times more local employees than the list’s No. 2: Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd.
Allergan’s had a busy year, particularly on the real estate front. The drug maker bought a building near its Dupont Drive campus in March, and it filed plans to possibly add a 250,000-square-foot four-story tower to its main campus with Irvine city officials. There is also talk that Allergan is interested in buying the 2600 Michelson tower near its headquarters.
Allergan’s highlights also included launching the eyelash-growing drug Latisse, which has done well at a time when patients are cutting back on elective medical procedures. Latisse, which is endorsed by actress Brooke Shields, had $25 million in sales in the first six months of this year, and Allergan expects it to have $60 million for the full year.
An Irvine unit of Israeli generic drug maker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries
followed Allergan at No. 2 with 838 local workers.
The unit previously was known as Teva Sicor and it came about through Teva’s buy of generic drug maker Sicor Inc. at the end of 2003.
Teva spent more than $3 billion for Sicor, which came to Irvine in the late 1990s and remade itself after an unsuccessful stint as a San Diego branded biotechnology drug maker.
Valeant, which is now based in Aliso Viejo, retained its No. 3 ranking on the list despite posting a 40% job drop to 190 local workers.
Valeant has been cutting jobs during the past year or so as part of a restructuring program initiated by Chief Executive J. Michael Pearson.
Pearson has worked to narrow Valeant’s focus and get it away from being a global drug maker.
Peregrine Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Tustin-based drug developer, was No. 4 on the list with a basically flat employee count of 129. Peregrine develops cancer drugs.
Irvine drug maker Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Inc. jumped two places to No. 5 on the list by doubling its local workforce to 120 people.
Spectrum added salespeople and support staff because it has launched a pair of drugs in the past year, said spokesman Paul Arndt.
Spectrum has started selling Fusilev, a drug to treat a rare form of bone cancer, and Zevalin, which is used to treat non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a blood cancer.
Spectrum was followed by Irvine’s Ista Pharmaceuticals Inc. at No. 6, with 107 local workers, essentially flat from a year earlier. Ista, a maker of eye drugs, is awaiting final Food and Drug Administration word on Bepreve, a drug to treat eye allergies. A decision is expected in September.
Ista also got a financial break late last year, when three of its long-term investors agreed to provide it up to $65 million in funding. Analysts were concerned that Ista could have run out of money if its bondholders had elected an option to force it to pay off debt by 2011.
Pfizer Inc., the New York maker of Viagra, Lipitor and several other high-profile drugs, ranked No. 7 with an estimated 70 employees at its operations in Irvine Towers, near John Wayne Air-port.
Stason Pharmaceuticals Inc., which is in Irvine, is tied as the No. 7. It posted a 40% job gain to 70 local workers.
Stason makes cancer and diabetes drugs and offers services such as research and development and production.
New York’s Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., the maker of Taxol for cancer treatment and Pravachol for cholesterol control, came in at No. 9 with an estimated 40 workers in its Aliso Viejo distribution office.
IDM Pharma Inc., an Irvine company that’s now part of Japan’s Takeda Phar-maceutical Co., rounded out the list’s top 10 companies with 20 workers, flat from a year ago. Takeda bought IDM, a maker of cancer drugs, for $67 million in May.
IDM was followed by Aliso Viejo’s Avanir Pharmaceuticals Inc., which was No. 11 with 19 workers, up 12% from a year ago. Avanir is working on Zenvia, a drug to stop uncontrollable fits of crying and laughing.
Cortex Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Irvine rounded out the list at No. 12 with a 52% workforce cut to 13 employees. Cortex, a maker of psychiatric and nervous system drugs, cut the jobs as part of a restructuring.
