Drug firm to shed 800 more positions

NEW YORK - Drug maker Bristol-Myers Squibb said yesterday it will eliminate another 10 percent of its workforce through 2010 as it works to pare costs before it loses patent protection on key drugs.

The New York company says it will eliminate 800 positions by the end of 2008, including filled and vacant jobs worldwide. Bristol-Myers estimates it will save $1 billion by 2012 as a result of the moves, which come on top of $1.5 billion in cost cuts disclosed in December 2007. Those cuts will eliminate about 4,300 jobs through 2010.

The company had about 41,000 employees at the end of 2007. The company said in July it would reveal new cost savings plans by the end of the year.

A company spokesman said the cuts will not affect Bristol-Myers' plans to build a drug manufacturing plant at the former Fort Devens Army base in central Massachusetts. Bristol-Myers now has 200 employees in Devens and another 40 in Waltham, where it bought Adnexus Therapeutics Inc. a year ago for $430 million.

Bristol-Myers did not provide an estimate of what the job cuts will cost. It said the moves will allow it to address both short-term and long-term challenges and uncertainties.