NEWS OF THE WEEK μΝΐ^ι^ϋΐτν
MTîQTlPOTENTt A team of U.S. and French scientists are reporting in Science that they have coaxed both male and female mouse embryonic stem cells to develop into eggs, the first time that stem cells have been induced to develop into germ line cells. Image shows structures morphologically similar to ovarian follicles induced in culture.
CONSOLIDATION
PFIZER SHIFTING R&D AMONG SITES Drug company moves to consolidate research after acquiring Pharmacia
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F I Z E R , NOW T H E W O R L D S
largest drug company after its purchase of Pharmacia, has begun an R&D reorganization that will likely lead to job cuts. The company with 25 R&D sites, has decided that it will not conduct R&D in any therapeutic area at more than two locations. Because of the required shuffling of staff, Pfizer is not yet providing figures on job cuts among its 130,000 employees. Both companies froze hiring for 10 months before the merger to accommodate some job changes. R&D will be headquartered at
Pfizer's two Connecticut sites, where about 6,200 researchers work. However, veterinary medicine and inflammatory disease R&D will be moved from these sites to Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor, Mich., respectively Facilities in Skokie, 111.; South San Francisco; and Fresnes, France, employing a total of about 2,000 people, will be closed. Pharmacia's Kalamazoo location—home to about 2,000 employees in R&D and about 3,500 people at what is now Pfizer's largest manufacturing operation—will remain a key site, a
company spokesman says. It will become the company's global center for drug safety evaluation and pharmaceutical sciences. However, the location will see job cuts as discovery research and medical development functions move elsewhere. Pfizer has about 2,500 employees in Ann Arbor, where exploratory and development work will expand. The site will focus on antibacterial, central nervous system disease, inflammation, and cardiovascular R&D, while cancer research will move to La Jolla, Calif, or Groton, Conn. "We simply can't add Pharmacia to Pfizer," CEO Henry A. McKinnell Jr. told shareholders just over a week ago. The company, which expects $2.5 billion in merger-related savings by 2005, hasn't yet said what it will spend on R&D this year. In 2002, Pfizer spent $5.18 billion, while Pharmacia spent $2.36 billion.—ANN THAYER
SCIENCE
National Academy Of Sciences Elects 72 New Members The National Academy of Sciences' 140th annual meeting held last week in Washington, D.C., was marked by the election of 72 new members and 18 foreign associates from 11 countries. Among the total were 21 women. New members and associates who are chemists or whose work involves chemistry include the following: MEMBERS John D. Baxter, University of California, San Francisco Peter Beak, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Praveen Chaudhari, director, Brookhaven National Lab Stephen J. Elledge, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and Baylor College of Medicine, Houston John B. Fenn, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond
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Joanna S. Fowler, Brookhaven National Lab
Martha L. Ludwig, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor William H. Schlesinger, Duke University
FOREIGN ASSOCIATES Avram Hershko, Technion— Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa
Carol W. Greider, Johns Hopkins University
Robert J. Silbey, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Arthur L Horwich, HHMI and Yale University
Robert M. Stroud, UC San Francisco
Ryoji Noyori, Research Center for Materials Science, Nagoya University, Japan
Roger E. Kasperson, executive director, Stockholm Environment Institute, Sweden
PaulA.Wender, Stanford University
Janet Thornton, director, European Bioinformatics Institute, Cambridge, U.K.
Cynthia J. Kenyon, UC San Francisco
Masashi Yanagisawa, HHMI and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas
Ada Yonath, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel-WILLIAM SCHULZ
Robert A. Lamb, HHMI and Northwestern University
HTTP://WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
