At least 500 Takeda Pharmaceutical employees who market Provigil in the US will be impacted by the announcement from Cephalon that it will end its co-promotion agreement with Takeda, Bloomberg reported. 

The partnership on the sleep-disorder agent Provigil is slated to end November 1. Takeda would not confirm the contents of the Bloomberg report, however, a Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing reports that 500 Takeda employees could be targeted, according to a Takeda spokesperson.  

Frazer, PA-based Cephalon cited a failure to reach a targeted goal of $850 million in sales this year as the reason for ending the agreement with Takeda. Both companies agreed that the co-promotion agreement could be severed if sales were lower than $850 million in the second year.

Cephalon is expected to add 270 sales representatives in 2009. According to industry sources, sales of Provigil rose 9.6% in the second quarter of this year to $234.8 million.