GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C. has notified 90 research-and-development workers in two Montgomery County operations that they will lose their jobs this year.

Last Tuesday, 30 workers in the chemical-development department at Glaxo's Upper Merion facility received layoff notices. Two weeks ago, 30 workers in the company's drug-discovery center in Upper Providence were told their jobs were being eliminated, Rick Koenig, Glaxo spokesman, said.

The first layoff notices came in December and January when 30 Glaxo clinical-development workers in Upper Providence were told that their jobs were being cut.

The company's Upper Merion plant employs 2,300 pharmaceutical workers, and the Upper Providence facility has 1,700 workers. Following the merger of SmithKline Beecham and Glaxo Wellcome P.L.C. in December 2000, the company pledged to save $355 million annually in its worldwide research operations, which employ 15,000 people.

"We have said we were going to use the merger to reshape research and development, and take a hard look at how our resources might be better directed to our best opportunities," Koenig said.

"The objective is not to find savings to bring to the bottom line, but to reinvest the money in opportunities to create new medicines."

Koenig said one of Glaxo's new research initiatives is genetics, in particular the link between gene variation and disease.

Koenig said GlaxoSmithKline was constructing several research-and-development facilities, in England, in Spain and in Upper Providence near Collegeville. Construction of the 147,000-square-foot plant in Upper Providence is scheduled to begin this year.

Glaxo also is constructing a research-and-development office building in King of Prussia. Koenig said: "In some instances, new jobs will be created."

---

Contact Linda Loyd

at 215-854-4822 or lloyd@phillynews.com.