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Glaxo laying off 100 at Philadelphia offices

"The savings" from sales and marketing job cuts "will be fully reinvested in R&D"

GlaxoSmithKline building at 5 Crescent Dr. in the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
GlaxoSmithKline building at 5 Crescent Dr. in the Philadelphia Navy Yard.Read moreGSK
    by Joseph N. DiStefano | Columnist
    Updated 
    Published 

GlaxoSmithKline is laying off 550 people in its U.S. commercial pharmaceuticals business, including breathing drugs such as Anoro, and its vaccines business.

The layoffs include around 100 of 1,000 marketing, sales, and support people based at the company's South Philadelphia offices at the Navy Yard, spokeswoman Sarah Spencer confirmed.

The U.K.- based company employs around 15,000 at its U.S. factory, research and sales centers. Glaxo said in a statement, "The savings from this restructuring will be fully reinvested in R&D."

In the Philadelphia area, Glaxo employs more than 3,500 people at its Collegeville research and development offices, which are not targeted in the cuts.

The company is seeking to cut more than $500 million from its global expenses and reinvest the money, for example into cancer research at Collegeville and other target sectors, the company said when it announced second-quarter earnings on July 25.

A trade journal reported Glaxo is also laying off around 100 in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina, another major U.S. employment center for the company.