The largest drugmakers with headquarters or significant operations in Orange County employed 3,210 here during the 12-month period that ended Aug. 30, about the same as a year earlier.
One firm added jobs, two reported declines, and the figures for the remaining six are Business Journal estimates.
• Perennial No. 1, Allergan PLC, which now has its headquarters in Ireland for tax purposes and primarily operates from Parsippany, N.J., employs an estimated 2,085 in Irvine and 31,200 companywide. Employment is up 4% companywide from a year ago and estimated even at its Irvine operations, where some cuts have been offset by jobs arriving amid a consolidation stemming from its acquisition last year by Actavis, which took the Allergan name.
Allergan Chief Executive Brent Saunders published “Our Social Contract with Patients” on his blog last week, a message that pointed to the likelihood that the company will rely on a mix of in-house staff and deals with other companies to maintain what he called a “commitment to innovation, access and responsible pricing ideals.”
“Our social contract begins where there is a patient with an unmet need,” Saunders wrote. “As we identify needs in our areas of expertise, we are committed to risking billions of dollars to develop life-enhancing innovations. We will do so in the U.S. and around the world. And, we use our Open Science model to access promising inventions that exist outside of Allergan. That means rewarding the scientists, start-up companies, academic institutions, investors and partners for the work they have put into the original invention, which becomes part of the cost of developing life enhancing innovations” (see related story, page 1).
He also said the company is committing to making “branded therapeutic treatments accessible and affordable to patients,” to “intensely monitoring the safety of our medicines,” and “to appropriately educating physicians about our medicines so that they can be used in the right patients for the right conditions.”
• No. 2 Peregrine Pharmaceuticals Inc. employs 303 here, a 21.7% increase from a year earlier. The Tustin-based company is developing monoclonal antibodies for the treatment and diagnosis of cancer, including its lead compound, bavituximab. It also has a subsidiary known as Avid Biosciences Inc., which provides development and biomanufacturing services for both Peregrine and outside customers.
“Our collaboration with NCCN provides the unique opportunity to support the group’s highly regarded research institutions and advance our understanding of the potential role of bavituximab in the treatment of various cancers,” said Joseph Shan, Peregrine vice president of clinical and regulatory affairs.
• Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., a maker of generic drugs, dropped one spot to No. 3, with a 9.8% cut in staffing that left it with 275 workers at its Irvine facilities. It completed a $40.5 billion acquisition of Allergan’s generics business last month, including medications used to treat various bacterial infections, Parkinson’s disease, abnormal heart rhythms, and to prevent organ rejection after a transplant, among others. Teva also had to sell the rights to 79 of its pharmaceutical products to competitors, including anesthetics, antibiotics, weight-loss drugs, oral contraceptives, and medications to treat allergies, arthritis, cancers, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and mental illnesses, in order to “preserve competition in U.S. pharmaceutical markets,” according to the Federal Trade Commission.
• Par Pharmaceuticals Holdings Inc. ranks No. 4 with an estimated 200 workers in Irvine. It manufactures specialty generics and sterile injectables. Dublin-based Endo International Plc acquired it last September from private-equity firm TPG Capital in a deal valued at about $8.05 billion.
• No. 5, Aliso Viejo-based Avanir Pharmaceuticals Inc., which was acquired by Japan-based Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. for $3.5 billion in December, employs an estimated 138 here. It makes Nuedexta, which is used to treat pseudobulbar affect, a neurological disorder characterized by uncontrollable laughing and/or crying. It also has a deal with Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck & Co. to co-promote a trio of Merck drugs for Type 2 diabetes in nursing homes. Avanir appointed Rohan Palekar as president and chief executive officer in January. The former COO replaced Keith Katkin, who moved to a seat on the company’s board.
• Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Inc. ranks No. 6 on the list. It focuses on development and commercialization of anti-cancer drugs, and the 87 workers at its research and development facility in Irvine represent a 2.2% decrease from the year-ago period. It markets six approved oncology/hematology drugs that target different types of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, advanced metastatic colorectal cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia and multiple myeloma.
• No. 7, Stason Pharmaceuticals Inc., has an estimated 80 workers in Irvine. It started as a generic drug manufacturer in 1994, and since 2008 also provides product development and manufacturing support to other pharmaceutical companies. It partnered with Amerigen Pharmaceuticals Ltd. in Lyndhurst, N.J., in 2011 to develop a portfolio of oral oncology products. The FDA last month approved the company’s application for a generic version of Merck’s Temodar, used to treat certain types of brain tumors.
The list is rounded out by two drug companies whose employee numbers are Business Journal estimates:
• Mallinckrodt PLC, which is based in Dublin, Ireland, and operates from suburban St. Louis, Mo., was No. 8 with an estimated 27 local employees. The company, which in 2013 spun off from Covidien PLC, last week agreed to sell its nuclear-imaging business to IBA Molecular in a $690 million deal that will not affect its Irvine operations.
• No. 9 Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, which develops and markets prescription and non-prescription drugs, employs an estimated 15 in Irvine. It was based in Aliso Viejo before it combined with Canada-based Biovail Corp. in 2010.
Valeant is best known for its recent failed attempt at a hostile takeover of Allergan and subsequent steep drop in market value and change in executive leadership amid questions over its sales and billing practices.
