The largest pharmaceutical companies reduced their workforce by more than 22,000 employees last year. Fierce Pharma analysed annual report data from 17 pharma giants and identified the reasons behind the sweeping layoffs. Here is a look at who reduced their headcount, why, and what the impact was.
Fierce Pharma examined the annual reports of 17 major players and found that only five of them increased headcount in 2025. Meanwhile, the reductions had a positive effect on efficiency: all but one company recorded an increase in revenue per employee. By way of comparison, in 2022 only three of the 17 companies reported workforce reductions.
The layoffs come as the industry braces for a sharp $300 billion decline in prescription drug revenues between 2025 and 2030. To sustain profitability, many companies are beginning to cut costs aggressively.
In contrast, the most successful companies—Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, leaders in the fast‑growing obesity drug market—created more than 36,000 jobs between 2021 and 2025. Compared with 2021, Novo Nordisk’s headcount grew by 43.9%, reaching nearly 68,800 employees by 2025, while Eli Lilly’s workforce increased by 42·9% to 50,000 employees. This headcount expansion was accompanied by a 36% increase in revenue per employee—the highest figure, thanks to Mounjaro and Zepbound.
Since 2021, Novo Nordisk’s annual headcount growth had consistently outpaced its competitors, including Eli Lilly. But that trajectory changed sharply last year. As GLP‑1 drug sales proved disappointing and competition from Eli Lilly intensified, the Danish company reduced its workforce by 9.8% in 2025. The company aims to save around 8 billion Danish kroner annually by the end of 2026 through the elimination of approximately 9,000 jobs.
Amgen also rapidly expanded its headcount, but this led to a 2% decline in revenue per employee, making it the only company with a negative change in this metric. AstraZeneca has also increased its headcount over the past five years, growing from 83,100 in 2021 to 96,100 in 2025, including 1,800 new jobs (1·9%) last year. Roche experienced the smallest fluctuations in headcount between 2021 and 2025, with the largest increase being 2·7% in 2022.
Major reorganisations at companies were driven either by changes in senior leadership or directly by patent expirations on their best‑selling products.
For example, in 2024, Bayer’s new CEO Bill Anderson began reorganising the conglomerate’s structure. By the end of 2025, Bayer employed around 88,000 people, down from approximately 100,000 before the reorganisation. That same year, Takeda initiated restructuring due to generic competition for its ADHD drug Vyvanse. By the end of March 2025, the company’s headcount had already fallen by around 1,800 employees (3·7%) compared with the previous year, despite steady growth in prior years.
Soon after Chris Boerner became CEO of Bristol Myers Squibb, he initiated changes aimed at cutting $1.5 billion in costs by the end of 2025. Last year, this plan was extended, with an additional $2 billion in cost reductions planned by the end of 2027. By the end of 2025, BMS had eliminated approximately 1,600 jobs (4·7%) compared with the previous year.
In July, Merck & Co. announced a sweeping cost‑reduction programme—$3 billion in annual savings by the end of 2027—one year before its key drug Keytruda loses exclusivity. The plan includes a headcount reduction of approximately 6,000 employees. In 2024 and 2023, the company had been hiring 3,000 employees per year.
Pfizer is also cutting costs. In April 2025, the company increased its cost‑savings target to $7.7 billion by 2027 as part of a reorganisation announced in 2023. Although the $43 billion acquisition of Seagen boosted Pfizer’s headcount by 6% to approximately 88,000 employees in 2023, the company reduced its workforce by 7,000 jobs (8%) the following year, and then by another 6,000 jobs (7·4%) in 2025. As a result, headcount reached 75,000—a decade‑low figure.
Workforce reductions also occur when companies divest assets. Between 2021 and 2025, Novartis, GSK, Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi all shed businesses.
GSK spun off Haleon in 2022, reducing its headcount by nearly 20,700 jobs (23%). After increasing headcount by 11,000 (7·8%) in 2022, J&J’s employee numbers fell by 20,800 (13·6%) following the spin‑off of its consumer health division Kenvue. In 2023, after spinning off its generics division Sandoz, Novartis’s headcount fell by approximately 25,600 (25·2%).
For Sanofi, the sale of a controlling stake in its consumer health division Opella resulted in the largest workforce reduction—more than 8,000 jobs (9·7%). This sale immediately improved the French company’s revenue per employee by 21·8% in 2025, marking the third‑largest increase for the year, behind Lilly (36·2%) and Novo (24·7%).
The spin‑off of Sandoz from Novartis in 2022 coincided with a major reorganisation. Even excluding the impact of Sandoz, Novartis’s product sales workforce declined by 3,620 positions (4·5%) in 2023 compared with 2022, followed by further reductions of 0·2% in 2024 and 0·8% in 2025. Thanks to product sales growth and cost reductions, Novartis achieved its target operating margin of 40% in 2025—two years ahead of schedule.