The new operations center would coordinate Glaxo's sprawling drug research campus in North Carolina and SmithKline's North American headquarters and drug-making facilities in Pennsylvania, the companies said. Such a move would add to the number of companies already expanding the state's 60,000-person pharmaceutical work force. This ability to attract new drug companies may offset the job losses from upcoming mergers, industry observers say. Heavy job losses are expected to hit Morris Plains if Warner-Lambert sells out to Pfizer Inc. or, less likely, to American Home Products, later this year. The key determinant in choosing New Jersey is the access to talent.
Any company can have nice buildings and strong computers.
What differentiates them is an ability to find lots of good people who really know the industry. That's what New Jersey has. The Glaxo SmithKline combination would create the world's largest drug company, with extensive research in asthma, migraine, HIV, and other diseases from Glaxo, and vaccines, anti-infectives, and central nervous system drugs from SmithKline. The merger is one of several announced recently in the highly fragmented pharmaceuticals industry, where no one company controls a double-digit share of the world market and every company is under enormous pressure to consolidate to keep profits high. The pressure comes from Washington, where drug companies are facing tension over the escalating cost of new prescription drugs, as well as from Wall Street, where investors are demanding, but not getting, dozens of new blockbuster drugs each year.