In May, Merck (Kenilworth, NJ, USA) announced it would invest $310 million over the next three years to expand two sites in Ireland—a biologics facility in Brinny, County Cork, and a vaccines and biologics plant in Carlow Town, County Carlow—with plans to add 330 jobs in total. The Carlow facility is a key production site for the cancer drug Keytruda (pembrolizumab), which was recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. Just last year, the drugmaker said it would add 110 jobs at its plant in Carlow and another 50 positions to its operations in Cork.

Last month saw the opening of Alexandria LaunchLabs in the Alexandria Center for Life Science in New York City, as part of a nearly $1.2-billion joint effort by the city and state of New York to spur development in the life sciences. LaunchLabs is designed to provide up to 25 startups with office space, equipment, amenities and access to investment capital. The first 13 life science companies in residence were announced, eight of which are focused on therapeutics and drug discovery: aratinga.bio, Chimeron Bio, Hookipa Biotech, ENB Therapeutics, Beagle Bioscience, Sevengenes, Gotham Therapeutics and Renovo Pharmaceuticals.

And Lexington, Massachusetts–based Agenus said it will shutter its site in Basel, Switzerland, and consolidate operations to Cambridge, UK, and Lexington, as well as focus on its manufacturing operations in Berkeley, California. The company will reduce head count by about 50 employees.

Advertised biotech and pharmaceutical sector jobs in the job databases tracked by Nature Biotechnology during the second quarter of 2017 are shown in Tables 1 and 2. Other downsizings within the life science industry are shown in Table 3.

Table 1 Who's hiring? Advertised openings at the 25 largest biotech companies
Table 2 Advertised job openings at the ten largest pharma companies
Table 3 Selected biotech and pharma downsizings