Pierre Fabre Cuts R&D Jobs In France

French drugmaker Pierre Fabre plans to cut 550 jobs—about half each in R&D and sales—by 2016 in response to poor performance in France. Claiming that its in-house R&D has been insufficiently productive, the privately owned company says it will narrow its research focus to the fields of oncology, neuropsychiatry, and dermatology. It attributes the sales job cuts to declining business in France in recent years. Sanofi earlier sought to close its R&D facility in Toulouse, France, citing productivity problems. It recently agreed to sell the site to the contract research firm Evotec.