Pfizer is working with a property consortium to fill its recently-closed Sandwich facility with life science companies.

The Discovery Park site, where Viagra was developed in the 1990s, will become an Enterprise Zone leased to multiple life science companies for R&D.

Pfizer itself will lease some of the facilities, where 650 of its employees still work following the closure of the main facility in 2011.

The site provides about 280,000 square metres of accommodation, including many specialist life science laboratories.

According to a Pfizer spokesperson, the company “has entered into a period of legal exclusivity with a consortium led by London & Metropolitan and financed by a major European institutional real estate investor for the sale of the Discovery Park campus in Sandwich, Kent.

“This announcement is a positive milestone in the transition of Discovery Park to becoming an R&D led multiple-use campus with Enterprise Zone status.”

Following discussions with London and Metropolitan, local Conservative MP Laura Sandys commented that the property consortium has a “very clear vision about having a strong life-science park that will attract people internationally”.

Merck (MSD outside the US) topped the job-cutting charts in 2011 as the industry witnessed another year of workforce reductions after a series of cost-cutting measures from a number of pharma giants.

Merck revealed plans in July to reduce its workforce by 12,000 to 13,000 following its merger in 2009 and to realign expenses with the expected reduction in revenue when Singulair loses its exclusivity in August, in an attempt to save $1.5billion.

Pfizer followed Merck after it after cut thousands of jobs after planning to close R&D plants in Sandwich, Kent, at a cost of around 2,400 jobs and in Connecticut accounting for a further 1,100 positions. An additional 500 employees in Germany and 220 in Spain have also reportedly been axed.

The world’s largest research-based pharma company aims to cut its R&D budget by $1.5 billion after realigning its investigational priorities and following the loss of exclusivity on its blockbuster drug Lipitor.

Novartis came third when wielding the axe after it revealed plans to reduce its workforce by 2,000 in an attempt to save $200 million a year. Workers were relieved of their duties at sites across Europe and reportedly in New Jersey. However, the company did invest somewhere in the region of $600 on a new R&D facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Abbott Laboratories followed in fourth position after it revealed at the start of last year that it would tackle the challenging regulatory environment by cutting 1,900 employees, or 6% of its staff. Further upheaval is also expected in 2012 when the company completes its breakup of the company into one focused pharmaceutical business and one solely for medical products.

AstraZeneca completed the top-five after it shed more than 1,500 positions in the US and Europe last year as it braced itself for the expiration of patents on brands on Seroquel by reducing its American sales team by nearly a quarter. The London-based company did however increase its presence in the emerging Chinese market.

Teva Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson, Eisai and Bayer Healthcare completed the top-ten companies for job losses as the industry struggled to compensate for major brand patent expiries, a challenging healthcare environment and a need to align expenses with growth targets.

Generic manufacturer Mylan has agreed a $17.5 million deal with Pfizer for the exclusive rights to develop, manufacture and commercialise a portfolio of respiratory products.

As part of the deal, Mylan will have licensing rights to Pfizer’s generic equivalent to GSK’s Advair and Seretide.

Heather Bresch, Mylan President, says the agreement offers a “significant opportunity for our generics business”.

The agreement will also see Mylan retaining staff at Pfizer’s respiratory inhalation development team at Discovery Park in Sandwich, Kent. Other former Pfizer staff will be located in Cambridge.

Under the terms of the agreement Mylan will have rights to Pfizer’s dry powder inhaler (DPI) technology platform, as well as the opportunity to negotiate on existing compounds during different stages of their development in the Pharma giant’s pipeline.

Mylan will have to pay the costs for any remaining development and commercialisation for the transferred products. Additional payments will also be made once the deal is completed, depending on the regulatory and commercial success of the portfolio.

Advair Diskus and Seretide Diskus are inhaled fixed-dose combinations of Fluticasone Propionate and Salmeterol which are delivered via a DPI and used to treat asthma and COPD.

On completion of the deal, Mylan with gain the exclusive commercialisation rights for Seretide in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as well as in the EU and European Free Trade Association countries. The two companies will have the co-promotion rights to the product in the rest of the world.

MPs are campaigning to continue a pharmaceutical presence at Pfizer’s site in Sandwich, Kent (pictured), after receiving 'Enterprise Zone' status last week.

The aim is to maintain the site as a life sciences location when Pfizer leaves the plant next year. In June, Pfizer agreed to keep 350 employees working at the plant until the US firm exits the site next year, incurring the total loss of 2,500 jobs.

It is hoped that the incentives of the Enterprise Zone will help to attract 190 businesses providing 2,500 new jobs, ideally headed by young people and former Pfizer employees, claimed Kent MP Greg Clarke.

Mr Clarke said: “We hope to continue the tradition of scientific research at Sandwich and benefit from the skills the area already has”.

MP Laura Sandys said that there are opportunities in “renewables, pharmaceuticals, food science, even aerospace”.

Ms Sandys has travelled across the Channel to try to promote the Discovery Park to potential European businesses and investors, claiming that she “will sell east Kent”.

Science Minister David Willetts is also supporting the UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). He confirmed that the “UKTI and BIS will work with Discovery Park to get overseas investment and business interest in the site.”

Mr Clarke added: “In ten years’ time we will be able to look here and not just think of Pfizer but see a world centre of excellence for scientific research”.

The next step is to obtain tourism funding and to hopefully be successful in a Regional Growth Fund (RGF) bid, says Dover District Council Leader Paul Watkins.

Details of successful bids are expected to be announced in late Autumn.

Pfizer’s previous home (pictured) in East Kent will now be used as part of the Government’s Enterprise Zone bid to create more jobs and cut taxes.

The package could support up to 2,600 jobs and 190 businesses at the recently named Discovery Park in Sandwich.

The Enterprise Zone aims to attract new start up businesses and other investors with simplified planning rules and millions of pounds in tax breaks to promote growth.

Laura Sandys, South Thanet MP, previously said that the scheme “will actually drive change and make the difference”.

The drugs giant said in February that the base would close by the end of 2012, which retained 350 out of 2,400 jobs.

Pfizer previously struggled to encourage interest in the site after it went on the market in June.

Government minister, Greg Clark, said: “The people of Kent, its local businesses and civic leaders are ready to take up the reins of the local economy, with the Discovery Park at the centre of their plan to accelerate growth.”

The Enterprise Zone in Sandwich joins nine others across the country created by the Government, expected to include locations in Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, London, Nottingham, and the North East.

Approximately 350 jobs at Pfizer’s R&D facility in Sandwich, Kent, will be retained.

The pharma giant has announced it will keep some of its “pharmaceutical sciences operations” in an attempt to attract new investors and occupants to the site (pictured).

In a statement, Pfizer says it will “continue to actively market” the site as ‘Discovery Park’ with its brokers and in close collaboration with the Government and regional task forces.

Pfizer announced back in February that approximately 2,400 jobs would be lost due to it closing the facility. Despite the plans to retain a number of jobs, Pfizer confirmed it will continue a phased exit of the rest of the Sandwich plant by the end of 2012.

Paul Carter, Chairman of the Sandwich Economic Development Task Force and leader of Kent County Council, said that Pfizer’s decision to retain hundreds of staff “is a step in the right direction”. He added that the Task Force is working closely with the pharma company to “secure further investors and businesses on-site”.

The announcement follows recent criticism from Laura Sandys, Conservative MP, South Thanet, and a member of the Task Force, who accused Pfizer of making redundancies too quickly.