Approximately 1,000 US workers will soon classify themselves as former Roche employees. The company said in a statement Tuesday that it was shuttering its Nutley, NJ, labs and shifting that site’s R&D responsibilities to locations in Basel, Switzerland, and Penzberg, Germany. Roche also said that it wasn’t completely giving up on the East Coast and was looking to hire 240 people to work at a translational research center at a location that has yet to be selected. Since 2009, when Roche bought out the remainder of Genentech for $46.8 billion and halted manufacturing in Nutley, the site has been devoted to early-stage research, with sales and marketing operations transferred to South San Francisco. In other news, Roche’ diagnostics headquarters in Indianapolis, IN, is slated for an expansion. InPharm reported Tuesday that Roche is going to invest $300 million at the site over the next decade. InPharm said the money will go toward rehabbing current buildings, new equipment for diabetes test strips and IT. The publication says the modifications also include about 100 new jobs between now and 2017.
PR giant Porter Novelli has named Michael Ramah CEO. The current global director of strategy has been with the firm for 25 years and will replace Gary Stockman, who will vacate the post July 31. Stockman has been CEO since 2008. As an executive, Stockman helped the Omnicom subsidiary merge with Copithorne and Bellows in 2000.
