Pfizer to close Durham and Morrisville, North Carolina facilities amid major restructuring effort

In a strategic initiative to streamline operations, Pfizer said it would close facilities in Durham and Morrisville, North Carolina. The company aims to cut at least $3.5 billion in costs. 

The company now employs more than 80,000 people worldwide, with roughly 4,000 based in North Carolina.

The closures will not affect Pfizer’s two largest facilities in North Carolina — Sanford and Rocky Mount. The Rocky Mount facility, which specializes in producing injectable medicines for hospitals, employs approximately 3,200 people and has recently resumed operations after a tornado damaged it in July. The Durham Clinical Manufacturing Facility, on the other hand, opened in December 2021. The company initially planned for the facility to create 50 jobs and relocate 40 employees from Chapel Hill. The exact number of people employed at the facility at the time of the announcement remains unclear.

The company has lowered its full-year revenue guidance to $58.0 to $61.0 billion for 2023 owing to lower-than-expected demand for its COVID products, including the vaccine Comirnaty and its oral antiviral pill Paxlovid. Its previous guidance was $67.0 to $70.0 billion. The reductions included a $7 billion cut in Paxlovid revenues and a $2 billion reduction in Comirnaty revenues. In all, the company cut its combined revenues for Paxlovid and Comirnaty almost in half — from $21.5 billion to $12.5 billion. 

The company had attempted to protect revenues by increasing the price of Paxlovid and Comirnaty substantially.

The Manhattan-headquartered company reported a 77% dip in its second-quarter profits, which totalled $2.33 billion. In the same quarter, the company’s revenue fell by 54% to $12.73 billion.

So far this year, the company’s stock has fallen 41.26% to $30.11.

On October 26, Pfizer and its partner BioNTech SE announced positive topline results from a phase 1/2 study of their mRNA-based combination vaccine candidates for influenza and COVID-19. The companies expect a pivotal phase 3 trial to launch in the coming months.