In July, Japanese drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceuticals announced its plan to move up to 750 employees in R&D and vaccines from its Deerfield, Illinois, headquarters to its scientific hub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The move comes alongside Takeda's acquisition of Cambridge-based Ariad Pharmaceuticals in January for $5.2 billion. Separately, Takeda cut 480 primary care sales employees around the US as part of a push to focus more resources on oncology. The company now has more than 5,000 employees in the US.

GlaxoSmithKline has canceled plans to build a new biologics plant in Ulverston, in the northwest of England, which would have resulted in 500 new jobs. Originally announced in 2012 as the first new GSK manufacturing facility to be built in the UK in almost 40 years, at a cost of £350 million, the company said it is halting plans because it no longer needs the additional capacity. GSK did announce that by 2020, it would invest more than £140 million at its Ware, Hertfordshire, Barnard Castle, County Durham and Montrose sites. This new investment is in addition to the £275 million announced last year. The investments will support expansion of manufacturing for respiratory and HIV medicines.

Finally, in September, Alexion Pharmaceuticals announced a restructuring plan that includes headcount reductions, facility closures, and the relocation of its headquarters from New Haven, Connecticut, to Boston. Alexion will reduce its headcount by 20%, totaling 600 employees, over the next year, with cuts coming from R&D, general and administrative staff, and manufacturing site closures. One confirmed closure is its manufacturing facility in Rhode Island. However, the company said it will increase staff in the US, Germany and Japan as it nears the expanded approvals for its blockbuster orphan disease drug Soliris (eculizumab). Soliris was approved in the EU for an additional indication, refractory generalized myasthenia gravis, in August, and is expected to be approved in Japan for the same indication next year. Soliris is currently approved to treat paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria and atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome.

Advertised biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector jobs in the job databases tracked by Nature Biotechnology during the third quarter of 2017 are shown in Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1 Who's hiring? Advertised openings at the 25 largest biotech companies
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Table 2 Advertised job openings at the ten largest pharma companies
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