Johnson & Johnson’s Cordis Corp. lays off sales staff and C.R. Bard Inc. cuts 200 at a Queensbury, N.Y. plant.
Johnson & Johnson’s (NYSE:JNJ) stent-making arm and C.R. Bard Inc. (NYSE:BCR) are laying off workers.
Johnson & Johnson’s Cordis Corp. subsidiary, which makes the Cypher drug-eluting stent, confirmed that it will lay off some of its sales force and merge two sales operations in response to sliding Cypher sales. The health conglomerate wouldn’t reveal how many workers will lose their jobs, but said the new sales operation will target decision-makers in hospitals’ purchasing departments as well as individual physicians.
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“This reflects the changing nature of the marketplace … to a total-account approach,” spokeswoman Sandra Pound told the Reuters news service.
“This change resulted in the elimination of some positions in our U.S. field sales organization, [but] we are continuing to call on all current accounts.”
It’s JNJ’s latest response to declining stent sales. Cordis jockeys for market share with other device-making giants, including Abbott (NYSE:ABT), Medtronic Inc. (NYSE:MDT) and Boston Scientific Corp. (NYSE:BSX).
Cordis posted a 10 percent top-line slump during the fourth quarter, to $629 million from $697 million during the same period in 2009. Full-year sales were $2.5 billion, a 4.7 percent slide from $2.7 billion in 2009. Worldwide DES sales were $134 million, down 38 percent from $223 million during the 2009 fourth quarter and plunged 31 percent to $627 million during 2010. Company officials said the slumping DES sales were the result of “continued market and competitive pressures.”
For its part, Bard said it will lay off about 200 workers at a plant in northern New York as it moves some operations to other facilities. That’s about 20 percent of the plant’s work force, spokesman Scott Lowry told the The Post-StarM of Glens Falls, N.Y.
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Bard is looking to “improve its overall cost structure and enhance operational efficiency,” Lowry said.
Murray Hill, N.J.-based Bard reported net earnings of $136.2 million, or $1.47 per diluted share, on sales of $717.1 million during the three months ended Dec. 31. That compares with net earnings of $105.9 million, or $1.08 per diluted share, on sales of $676.9 million during the same period last year, just a penny shy of analysts’ predictions. CEO Timothy Ring told an investors’ conference call that the company is not alone in shifting resources from under-performing operations.
“What you’re seeing here — and I don’t think we’re unique in this respect — we’re going to be re-deploying resources to the growth areas around the globe,” Ring said. “And those areas that are in the businesses that are a little bit slower, we’re going to pull resources out.”
The Massachusetts Medical Devices Journal is the online journal of the medical devices industry in the Commonwealth and New England, providing day-to-day coverage of the devices that save lives, the people behind them, and the burgeoning trends and developments within the industry.
