Biotechnology company Amgen plans to lay off 350 workers at Horizon Therapeutics, most of whom work in Deerfield, following Amgen’s acquisition of the drug company less than three weeks ago.
As of late last year, Horizon had about 2,000 workers globally, including about 600 in its Deerfield offices, which were the company’s U.S. headquarters.
Amgen acquired Horizon on Oct. 6, in a $27.8 billion deal.
Amgen said in a statement that about 80% of Horizon’s workers will be placed into jobs at Amgen. The 350 who are being laid off are losing their jobs largely because of “overlap with existing teams at Amgen,” Amgen said in the statement.
Workers’ last days will be throughout 2024, with no jobs being terminated before Dec. 30 of this year.
“We do not take these decisions lightly, and we appreciate the contributions of those employees being impacted,” Amgen said in the statement. “We will treat them with respect and offer support through the process.”
Horizon, which was based in Ireland, sold orphan drugs, which are medications for rare diseases, and drugs to treat rheumatic diseases. Amgen is a large drugmaker based in California.
When asked what will become of Horizon’s Deerfield offices — a three-building, 650,000-square-foot campus visible from I-94 — an Amgen spokeswoman said, “Horizon has made a significant investment in the Chicago community, and we are committed to a footprint in Deerfield.”
Horizon decided in 2020 to relocate its U.S. headquarters from Lake Forest to the campus, which was previously home to the U.S. headquarters of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.
Horizon was founded in 2008 with only a few workers but grew rapidly. Horizon’s best-selling drug was Tepezza, for thyroid eye disease, which came from a company Horizon acquired in 2017. Horizon’s second-best-selling drug was Krystexxa, a drug for uncontrolled gout. Amgen’s top-selling drugs are Enbrel, for rheumatoid arthritis, and Prolia, for osteoporosis.
Horizon had sales of $945 million and Amgen had sales of $6.7 billion in the three months that ended June 30.
Amgen and Horizon first announced the acquisition deal late last year. In May, the Federal Trade Commission sought to block the deal, filing a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The FTC alleged that the acquisition would give Amgen the ability stifle competition to Horizon’s top-selling drugs and entrench those drugs’ monopolies.
It was the FTC’s first litigated challenge to a pharmaceutical merger in more than a decade, and a signal that the FTC will not shy away from trying to stop drug company mergers, amid rapid consolidation in the industry that has led to high prescription drug prices, said Holly Vedova, then-FTC Bureau of Competition director, at the time, in a news release.
In September, Amgen reached an agreement with the FTC, in which Amgen agreed not to use certain anticompetitive tactics, and the deal was allowed to move forward.