Pfizer Plans Layoffs in Research

Drug Maker Has Little in Pipeline to Show for Its $7.5 Billion R&D Budget

Pfizer Inc. is laying off as many as 800 researchers in a tacit admission that its laboratories have failed to live up to the tens of billions of dollars it has poured into them in recent years.

The world's largest pharmaceutical company by sales Tuesday told scientists and technicians at its labs around the world that it is eliminating their jobs, according to a person familiar with the matter. By year end, the New York drug maker expects to have laid off 5% to 8% of its 10,000 research employees, according to Martin Mackay, who heads Pfizer's research and development