Business Concentrates EMPLOYMENT
Trump taps Liveris for manufacturing role Dow CEO will head committee aimed at turning around manufacturing President-elect Donald Trump will tap the expertise of Dow Chemical Chief Executive Officer Andrew N. Liveris as his administration attempts to turn around the U.S. manufacturing sector.
President-elect Donald Trump and Dow Chemical CEO Andrew N. Liveris appear together at a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich. At a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Dec. 9, Trump announced Liveris’s appointment to head the American Manufacturing Council, which Trump says “will be tasked with finding ways to bring industry back to America.” Timed with the appointment, Dow announced that it would build a new innovation center in Midland, Mich. The company says the facility will support 200 R&D jobs. Dow says some 100 of the jobs will be newly created, and another 100 will be “repatriated” from other Dow facilities around the world.
Dow says the new facility will focus on combining its existing chemistries with technology that it acquired earlier this year when it assumed full ownership of the Dow Corning silicones business. Liveris has been outspoken about the state of U.S. manufacturing. Back in 2011, he published the book “Make It in America: The Case for Re-Inventing the Economy.” In it, he argued that the U.S. government should follow the lead of its foreign counterparts and offer incentives to attract manufacturers. “Around the world, countries are acting more and more like companies: competing aggressively against one another for business,” he wrote. Liveris has also served as cochair, along with former MIT president Susan Hockfield, of President Barack Obama’s Advanced Manufacturing Partnership. Liveris, who also spoke at the rally, wasn’t shy about connecting the new R&D center to the pro-manufacturing stance of the incoming president. “I tingle with pride listening to you,” he said. “You’re paving the way with your administration, with your policies, to make it easier to do business in this country—not a red tape country, but a red carpet country,” he said. However, trade policy possibly offers a point of contrast between Trump and Liveris. Trump wants to scrap the recently negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement between the U.S. and Asian nations. Dow Chemical has endorsed TPP.—ALEX TULLO
BY THE NUMBERS
3.7% The return on R&D investment at 12 leading drug companies in 2016—the lowest level since 2010—according to the consultancy Deloitte. Last year, the industry saw returns of 4.2%. Deloitte points to regulatory and reimbursement hurdles as reasons for the decline. It suggests firms should maintain a consistent disease focus and adjust spending for the post-blockbuster era.
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | DECEMBER 12/19, 2016
Year-end overhauls planned at drug firms Several big drug companies are unleashing end-of-year overhauls that include job cuts and shifts in their R&D and manufacturing organizations. The latest to announce a shift, Bristol-Myers Squibb, is taking steps to focus its research activities at three main hubs: central New Jersey, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Cambridge, Mass. Investments include a new R&D building in Lawrenceville, N.J.; added biologics development capacity in New Brunswick, N.J.; and a biologics expansion in Devens, Mass. But BMS is also closing sites in Hopewell, N.J., and Seattle, and it will not build a planned drug development facility in Connecticut. The Hopewell facility currently employs about 1,200 people, many of whom will move to other sites in New Jersey and “potential other U.S. locations,” according to a spokesperson. The approximately 80 employees in Seattle could shift to Bothell, Wash., or elsewhere in the U.S. Meanwhile, other firms announced job cuts, primarily in the sales area. AstraZeneca says it will slash 700 jobs from its U.S. commercial business. Sanofi is trimming roughly 20% of its diabetes and cardiovascular sales force. And Mylan revealed in a federal filing that it will cut “less than 10% of its global workforce”—which at the end of last year totaled 35,000 people—in a streamlining effort after a series of acquisitions. Although an announcement has yet to be made, cuts are also expected at Eli Lilly & Co., which last month said its Alzheimer’s treatment solanezumab—a critical part of its drug pipeline—failed a key Phase III study.—LISA JARVIS
CREDIT: MIKE SEGAR/REUTERS/NEWSCOM
ECONOMY
