Amgen closing Longmont, Boulder facilities

Local loss of jobs will contribute to overall reduction of as many as 2,900 by end of 2015, most of those in U.S.

Biotechnology firm Amgen announced Tuesday that it plans to close its facilities in Colorado and Washington by the end of next year, resulting in the loss of approximately 430 jobs in Boulder County.

The cuts will begin at the company's facilities in Longmont and Boulder in the third quarter of this year and the sites will be completely shut down by the end of 2015, the company said.

The Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based company said that overall, it is cutting 2,400 to 2,900 jobs, or about 12 percent to 15 percent of its global work force. Most of those cuts will be in the U.S., it said.

Robert A. Bradway

"To minimize the impact on staff, we are offering a voluntary transition program for eligible staff in the U.S. and Puerto Rico," Amgen's chairman and CEO Robert Bradway wrote in a memo to employees that was made available to the media. The memo went out Tuesday morning, in advance of the company's second quarter earnings announcement in the afternoon.

"The voluntary transition program provides an enhanced benefits package to those staff members who may be ready to move on to another career or to pursue other interests," the memo said, adding that details of the voluntary program will be provided to employees in a separate memo.

All of the employees being let go, the memo said, will be offered transition support and severance benefits.

Amgen said in its earnings announcement that the job cuts and restructuring were necessary to "accelerate our long-term strategy for growth and to strengthen our position as a leading global biotechnology company" by freeing up cash to invest in its up-and-coming medicines.

The closing of Amgen's Colorado sites is the second blow to local employees this year. In August 2012, Amgen said it would be ceasing its manufacturing of Epogen, which was only made at the company's Longmont facility. What that meant to local jobs became clear in January, when the company told 200 workers involved in its manufacturing operations that they would lose their jobs on April 30.

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Amgen closing Longmont, Boulder facilities