Drug maker’s $300M deal to cost local workers their jobs

The decision by a Nevadabased biotechnology company to sell off seven of its drugs for treating cancers and diseases that are carried through the bloodstream is costing three Connecticut-based employees their jobs.

Spectrum Pharmaceuticals notified the Connecticut Department of Labor last week that it will lay off the workers in April. The announcement comes about five weeks after Spectrum announced a $300 million deal to sell a portfolio of seven hematology/oncology drugs it has that are already approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration to Acrotech Biopharma, a New Jersey-based drug company.

Earl Falls, Spectrum’s vice president of human resource, said in a letter to state Labor Department officials that the divestiture of the hematology/ oncology drug product line is expected to close in midMarch and will be followed by the layoffs on April 12.

Spectrum is laying off its director of marketing brand strategy opinion, who is based in Guilford, the company’s Middlebury-based area business director and a senior account manager, who lives in Colchester. None of the people are mentioned by name and a Spectrum spokesman declined to comment on the layoffs.

The Connecticut layoffs are part of a larger round of layoffs associated with Spectrum’s product line divestiture at various locations around the country. For example, the Missouri Department of Labor is reporting that five Spectrum workers at different locations around the state are losing their jobs.

Company officials told the St. Louis Business Journal Thursdaythe Missouri layoffs also were a result of the product line divestiture.

Joe Turgeon, president and chief executive officer of Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, said when the deal was announced last month, the majority of employees whose jobs are associated with the hematology/oncology drugs that are being sold “will transition to Acrotech, thereby right sizing Spectrum for our development efforts.” Turgeon did not say how many Spectrum employees had jobs with the drug portfolio being sold.

Spectrum is based in Henderson, Nev., and the company has a large base of operations in Irvine, Calif.