Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer told the 1,300 full-time employees at its San Diego research unit yesterday that a planned reorganization will result in a “net reduction” of jobs at the sprawling campus.

A spokesman said the company will empty two of the nine buildings on the campus, and either sell or lease them.

New York-based Pfizer, the world’s largest drug maker, plans to cut an undisclosed number of its 15,000 research and development jobs worldwide, and consolidate or reshuffle drug development projects among its six global research sites.

The job cuts are part of a larger reorganization effort at Pfizer, which employs 115,000 worldwide. Faced with increased competition, patent expirations and safety concerns about its top-selling pain reliever Celebrex, Pfizer disclosed in April that it would trim costs by $4 billion, which would include layoffs.

Yesterday, it was the R&D employees’ turn to learn their fate. Staff at Pfizer’s U.S. research sites - in Connecticut, two in Michigan and San Diego - were given some details in closed meetings. Pfizer also has research units in England and Japan.

“Every (R&D) site and every line are impacted by this, but the important things are that our program goals remain, and there are no site closures,” said Betsy Raymond, a spokeswoman for Pfizer. “What we have in our drug pipeline continues. We want to free up spending where we can, so it can be applied to the new medicines we are working on.”

Pfizer offered only sketchy information about plans for the Pfizer Global Research and Development campus on the Torrey Pines Mesa, a nine-building campus dedicated to research in four areas: cancer; diabetes and obesity; eye diseases; and virology, such as HIV/AIDS and SARS.

On the basic research side - the lab bench discovery of new drug molecules - the San Diego facility will continue to work in all four areas, said Raymond.

But on the development side - nurturing promising compounds through human clinical studies - the virology and diabetes/obesity programs will be shifted to other Pfizer campuses, she said.

Some of the San Diego campus’ basic research services - like the screening of drug compounds - will be farmed out to Connecticut and England, said Raymond.

Pfizer’s San Diego research campus has had striking successes and failures in its various drug programs. In oncology - a program that will remain here for both research and development - Pfizer’s San Diego team worked on Sutent, an experimental drug for stomach cancer and kidney cancer.

Pfizer plans to file an application next month seeking U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the drug.

In contrast, Pfizer stopped development this month on Capravirine, an experimental HIV drug first developed by San Diego biotech Agouron Pharmaceuticals. Pfizer inherited the compound in 2000 when it bought Warner-Lambert, which had purchased Agouron a year earlier.

This isn’t the first time Pfizer’s San Diego research campus has had to grapple with job cuts, but it is the first time it will lose more jobs than it gains in a major reshuffle.

In a huge cutback in 2003, when Pfizer was trying to digest its $60 billion acquisition of Pharmacia, the La Jolla campus was left largely unscathed, and in the end gained more jobs than it lost, according to company officials.

Despite the looming job cuts, Pfizer maintains deep roots in the region. The company invested more than $155 million to construct an eight-building campus on the Torrey Pines Mesa, and paid about $40 million in 2003 to acquire the ninth building.

Last November, Pfizer bought the land on which the campus was built for $372 million from its landlord, Slough Estates.

Pfizer is also investing in local biotech companies in an effort to augment its own research efforts and broaden its drug pipeline. Earlier this year, Pfizer bought Idun Pharmaceuticals for an undisclosed sum. It also bought Angiosyn, a tiny local start-up, in a staggered deal worth $527 million in years to come if Angiosyn’s drug in preclinical development makes it successfully through years of human testing and wins regulatory approval.

In 2002, Pfizer paid $400 million to San Diego’s Neurocrine Biosciences for partial rights to its experimental sleeping pill, which could be approved early next year.

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Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune