[mtwalsh01]

The difficult international economic conditions have hit the biotechnology industry hard, with many companies severely scaling back their research and development activities and many smaller companies struggling to survive. One of the latest casualties is Galderma Labs, a dermatology company based in Fort Worth, Texas, which was originally established by Nestle and L’Oreal in 1981. The company has just announced that it will be restructuring the company, resulting in lay-offs across the spectrum of employees. While there is no information on the number of employees who will lose their jobs, the company has confirmed that the effects will extend from their home office across other sites in the USA. This news follows the departure of the company’s president, Francois Fournier earlier this year.

Although Galderna Labs had won approval for its rosacea drug Mirvaso earlier in the year and had begun marketing this drug, they received a blow when their prospective impetigo drug auriclosene failed a Phase IIb study. The results of this trial have not been released; the company merely released a statement that they were reviewing the results with a view to trying to decide how to proceed. The departure of Francois Fournier followed soon after this failed trial. The future of Galderma Labs remains uncertain after the restructuring exercise. There has been recent speculation in Bloomberg that Nestle may opt to merge it with Allergan, another company which has been suffering in the on-going worldwide recession.

Source

http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/galde...2013-12-12