Listen to this articleA fresh wave of layoffs is impacting New Jersey’s pharmaceutical sector with Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb both disclosing planned workforce reductions.
Merck
In a filing with the New Jersey Department of Labor & Workforce Development, Merck said it expects to cut 204 positions at its headquarters in Rahway between February and May 2026.
This marks the second round of layoffs to impact Merck’s operations in New Jersey. In August, the company disclosed it would let go of 58 employees as part of a broader plan to reduce expenses and boost profits.
In a bid to cut costs by $3 billion by the end of 2027, the drugmaker expects to eliminate 6,000 across the company.
The restructuring program is also targeting manufacturing optimization and real estate consolidation. The effort comes as Merck tries to diversify ahead of patent losses in 2028 for its blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda and top-selling vaccine Gardasil.
Since 2021, Merck has nearly tripled its late-stage pipeline through in-house development and several major acquisitions. The company recently announced two more planned acquisitions: a $9.2 billion deal to secure an experimental flu antiviral and a $10 billion transaction on a promising COPD drug.
In a statement to NJBIZ, a spokesperson for the company said, “We remain committed to New Jersey, as we continue to employ more than 8,000 people in the state. We have also invested nearly $3 billion since 2018 in our New Jersey operations, which manufacture medicines and vaccines that contribute to saving and improving lives worldwide.”
Bristol Myers Squibb
Bristol Myers Squibb plans to let go of 110 workers in New Jersey between February and March 2026, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice filed with the state.
The pharma did not say which workers the cuts will affect or where the reductions will take place. In addition to a corporate headquarters in Lawrenceville, the company has a 650,000-square-foot facility for its commercial and R&D teams.
Through a “strategic productivity initiative” announced in February, BMS aims to slash $2 billion in costs by the end of 2027. The move came less than a year after the company unveiled plans to save $1.5 billion via the layoff of some 2,220 employees.
Within New Jersey, the company already issued 1,156 pink slips this year.
The newly announced Garden State cuts come on the heels of more than 1,300 layoffs at BMS in 2024.
A Bristol Myers Squibb spokesperson told NJBIZ, “As shared on our quarterly earnings calls earlier this year, we remain focused on developing and delivering transformational medicines to patients around the world and continue to deliver on our long-term business strategy by aligning resources to best support our operating model and our portfolio evolution.
“Unfortunately, there were impacts to some of our employees as a result of these changes noted above. We are grateful for the contributions of our colleagues and a top priority for us is supporting employees throughout the transition process.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 4:14 p.m. Nov. 20, 2025, to include a statement from Bristol Myers Squibb.
