Healthy Skepticism Library item: 8597

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Publication type: news

Lilly sees no major changes to sales force size
Reuters 2007 Feb 15
http://yahoo.reuters.com/news/articlehybrid.aspx?storyID=urn:newsml:reuters.com:20070215:MTFH10921_2007-02-15_13-23-33_N15177835&type=comktNews&rpc=44

Full text:

NEW YORK, Feb 15 (Reuters) – U.S. drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co. (LLY.N: Quote, Profile , Research) does not plan major changes to the size of its sales force, even as industry rivals cut jobs, its chief executive said on Thursday.

Lilly Chief Executive Sidney Taurel said the company had already trimmed its sales force, though its product line has tripled in the past four years.

“We won’t grow our sales force,” Taurel said in an interview with business cable channel CNBC. “There has been some reduction, some reorganization … of our sales force. But we don’t see major decreases.”

Taurel said the company has already shrunk its total work force by 4,500, or 10 percent, since the middle of 2004.

The industry’s largest companies are scaling back on factory and sales jobs as they contend with threats to top products from generic competition and weak product pipelines.

Pfizer Inc. (PFE.N: Quote, Profile , Research), the world’s largest drugmaker, announced cuts to both its European and U.S. sales forces by at least 20 percent in recent months.

AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L: Quote, Profile , Research) said earlier this month it plans to cut 3,000 jobs, or 4.6 percent of its global work force, with a focus on its factories.