Denmark's Drug maker Lundbeck to cut 1,000 jobs in restructuring
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Drug maker Lundbeck will slash costs by 3 billion Danish crowns ($444.6 million) and cut 1,000 jobs in a bid to regain profitability, the company announced on Wednesday.
The Danish firm, which appointed a new chief executive last May, sells drugs to treat depression and other brain diseases, but several key patents have expired in recent years, leading to a slump in revenues.
"When the restructuring programme is finalised, we expect to significantly improve the company's profitability and we expect to see positive reported operating profit already in 2016 with further improvement in 2017," Lundbeck said in a statement.
As part of the restructuring, the company reclassified previous research and development spending worth 4.8 billion crowns as a one-off cost in the second quarter, leading to an operating loss of 4.87 billion crowns.
Analysts in a Reuters poll has not anticipated the extra cost, and had on average expected an operating loss of 233 million crowns for the April-June period.
Lundbeck also said it would book provisions and write-downs totalling 1.7 billion crowns in the third quarter and that its full-year operating loss would amount to around 7.0 billion.
Revenues for 2015 were seen at around 14.0 billion crowns, slightly ahead of the 13.8 billion seen in the Reuters poll, while its core operating profit was expected at 0.5 billion crowns, beating an average analyst forecast of just 93 million.
reuters.com
