Johnson Johnson said today it would reduce its 120,500-member global work force by 3% to 4%, or as many as 4,800 jobs, through attrition and hiring freezes.

AstraZeneca said it plans to eliminate an additional 4,600 jobs in Europe and North America as part of a major cost-cutting initiative aimed at helping save the company $900 million by 2010.

Merck plans to eliminate its osteoporosis specialty team at the end of the year, ahead of the February 2008 patent expiration of its bone density blockbuster Fosamax.

Contract sales firm PDI has been selected by an unnamed provider of nutritional products to execute a promotional campaign over a three-month period.

Expect to see continued field force downsizing in 2007 as pharmaceutical companies experiment with new sales execution strategies to improve their market position, said Mike Luby, CEO of prescribing behavior tracking firm TargetRx.

Reed Elsevier is selling its Harcourt Education division to focus on “growing digital opportunities” in its science and medical, legal and business units, Bloomberg reported.

Abbott Laboratories plans to eliminate “several hundred” primary care sales representative jobs across the US, a company spokesman confirmed.