Adare Pharmaceuticals: The Battle of the Brains Continues

Fedaisf editorial staff

October 6, 2015

“Il settore farmaceutico ha registrato in Italia una perdita del 22% della forza lavoro, equal to 14 thousand less employed - explains Fabrizio Rigoldi, general secretary of Ugl Milano - mostly among scientific informants ". Unemployed people who don't make noise, because they are dispersed in a myriad of small-medium sized companies.

OCTOBER 3, 2015 | Of Camilla Gaiaschi | CORRIERE DELLA SERA / Blogs

They are "only" 44 but they are worth gold. The redundant workers at Adare Pharmaceuticals are almost all researchers, “brains” that the government says it wants to bring back but that we can't even hold back. Their fate hangs by a thread and has a symbolic value: another slice of Italian know-how (with added value) that goes away.

Yesterday about a hundred workers protested in front of Assolombarda, where the top management and the unions ended the meeting with nothing done: "The company remained in its positions - explains Alessandro Maucci, Adare RSU - the plan will be implemented with or without an agreement”.

All that remains for the unions is to negotiate on the return of the redundancies. The next meeting is scheduled for October 9: “The effort will be to make the transition as painless as possible for people who stay out of the company”.

Even the Department of Productive Activities of the Lombardy Region, who met the social partners yesterday, wants to see clearly about them. A parliamentary question signed 5 stars has been tabled. Because the displacement of research from Pessano con Bornago (one of the two Italian production sites of Adare, the other is in S. Donato, also in the Milan area) to Vandalia, in the USA, is the tip of the iceberg.

“Due to relocations over the past seven years the pharmaceutical sector in Italy recorded a loss of 22% of the workforce, equal to 14 thousand less employed - explains Fabrizio Rigoldi, general secretary of Ugl Milano - mostly among scientific informants ".

Unemployed people who make no noise, because they are dispersed in a myriad of small-medium sized companies, "but it is necessary to have an overall view - Rigoldi continues - we continue to lose important parts of the scientific fabric of this country”.

Adare Pharmaceuticals today has 267 employees and has a history of excellence behind it. It was born in the 1960s from a group of Italian researchers. It then passed into American hands and in the 1990s the management took it over, investing farsightedly in research and development. In a few years it becomes a leader in release drugs and pancreatin.

The latter is coveted by investment funds. And in 2011 the company entered the whirlwind of private equity: it was sold to the US fund TPG for just under 600 million dollars, after three years resold for 2.9 billion to Forest Lab, which in the meantime was acquired by Actavis.

In 2015 TPG repurchased a small part of the company, the one specialized in drug release, while the pancreatin activities remain in the hands of Actavis. "In these years there was no long-term industrial logic – explains Alessandro Maucci – the point in these passages has always been to restructure in order to resell in short order”.

This is what is reproached to the private equity that enter the manufacturing: of look for profit in the short term instead of focusing on long-term growth. Today the price will be paid by Italian researchers.

Twitter@camillagaiaschi