Pharmaceutical layoffs up nearly 6% from last year

The total number of layoffs in the pharmaceutical industry is up by 5.7 percent compared to this time last year, according to a report from Challenger Gray & Christmas, an executive outplacement firm.

As of November, there were 11,219 layoffs in the industry. At this time last year there were 10,618.

In November 2018, there were 483 layoffs, while in October 2019 there were 2,243.

Amgen cut hundreds of jobs in November, when it laid off a quarter of its staff at its Cambridge, Mass., facility and cut 172 jobs across the country.

Also in November, HealthPartners closed all of its retail pharmacies and laid off 100 pharmacists.

The FTC also cleared the way for Bristol-Myers Squibb to acquire Celgene, which could lead to more layoffs before the end of the year.

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Maia Anderson - 2 days ago Print | Email Edit this Article

Terry Baughman, regional director of pharmacy for Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems, has 45 years of experience in the pharmacy industry. Starting his career at a pharmacy management company, he went on to spend 10 years teaching pharmacists how to become directors of pharmacy.

He recently spoke with Becker's Hospital Review about changes in the industry he would never have predicted when he started his career and passed along advice for his fellow pharmacy leaders.

Here's what he had to say:

Editor's Note: Responses were lightly edited for length and clarity.

Question: What drug-pricing reforms should pharmacy leaders pay attention to and why?

Terry Baughman: When I started practicing 45 years ago we never dreamed of a $1,000 drug. Now, you've got $100,000 drugs. Whatever the policies are that would come into play that will mitigate and moderate those top-end drug prices, I think are going to have a big dollar effect.

Q: What major changes in pharmacy have you seen in recent years that you would have never expected when you started in the industry?

TB: The demographics of pharmacists have changed. The practice of pharmacy has gone from a five-year education to an eight-year education, and that has lots of ramifications financially on the workforce itself. There are also many more pharmacy schools now than when I went to school. The down side to that is, they're graduating more pharmacists than there are jobs. What we've seen in the last few years, and what we will see accelerate, is something I never had to deal with in my career, and that is students are coming out of school, and they can't find a job. That has a real impact on the profession as a whole. Pharmacists who have jobs are much less willing to relocate or move because they have little assurance they will be able to find another job, and that continues to further have a negative effect on kids coming out of school. Additionally, the recession that we had in 2008 wiped out a sizable amount of our retirement funds, and that's pushed pharmacists to work longer than they would have normally, which further reduces the amount of positions for students coming out of school.

Q: How is your organization improving medication accessibility for patients?