Pharmaceutical giant Daiichi Sankyo Inc. is laying off 18 employees at its sales office in Westlake.
Daiichi Sankyo, in a letter dated Dec. 11 to the Texas Workforce Commission said the actions are part of a restructuring of its sales operations in the United States and part of about 1,000 employees around the country. In the letter, the company said most of the employees “work from their homes and reside outside the state of Texas,” but report to the Westlake sales office.
In October, Daiichi Sankyo’s U.S. commercial operations aid it expected to reorganize and reduce expenses around the country as the company “begins to transition from a maturing primary care product portfolio to a differentiated specialty portfolio that will include areas such as cardiovascular, pain management and oncology,” according to a company press release.
Daiichi Sankyo’s U.S. operations are based in Parsippany, New Jersey. The Tokyo-based pharmaceutical giant traces its U.S. relationship back to 1912, when the company’s first president Dr. Jokichi Takamine, helped with the gift of 3,000 cherry trees from Japan to Washington, D.C.