Merck announced plans to cut 1,200 sales jobs by the end of July. Affected employees will be notified by the end of May.

Schering-Plough awarded media duties in the US to MediaVest, a subsidiary of Publicis Groupe.

In an Associated Press tally, seven out of the 12 companies surveyed reported reductions in work force by 10% or more since January 2007.

Johnson & Johnson is consolidating sales and marketing personnel for Ortho Biotech and Centecor.

GlaxoSmithKline will close the Liberty Corner, NJ, headquarters of Reliant Pharmaceuticals and plans to lay off 109 workers at the site, The Star-Ledger of New Jersey reports.

The market for obesity treatments will grow five-fold by 2016, according to research firm Decision Resources.

A bill introduced in the House of Representatives last week would mandate reporting of all gifts to physicians worth more than $25, and violators could lose millions in tax deductions for advertising expenses.

Eli Lilly has denied the assertions of a recent New York Times article alleging that incoming CEO John Lechleiter encouraged off-label promotion of the company's embattled schizophrenia treatment Zyprexa (olanzapine) in an e-mail he sent in 2003.

In an effort to educate physicians and consumers about a complex and painful form of erectile dysfunction know as Peyronie's disease, device manufacturer Cook Medical recently launched an unbranded physician education focused website found online at MensHealthPD.com.

AstraZeneca is going for the jugular - or rather, the carotid - with new ads emphasizing Crestor's effectiveness at slowing the progression of atherosclerosis.