Job loss in NJ’s drug sector

A new report says the pharmaceutical industry poured $28.7 billion into New Jersey’s economy last year even as industry jobs were cut.

New Jersey has seen a drop in the number of pharmaceutical industry jobs in the state and there may be more losses ahead.

By: Phil Gregory
philgregorynews@gmail.com

The Health Care Institute of New Jersey says 1400 jobs in the pharmaceutical and medical technology industry were lost in the past 12 months. Former Congressman Bob Franks is the Institute’s President. He says the tax and regulatory climate in the Garden State threatens the state’s ability to be competitive in retaining and attracting drug companies

Franks: The reality is we need to work to create as competitive and low cost an environment as we can recognizing that we’ll never in fact be a truly low cost environment.

Franks says changes to the tax rate to help keep the drug companies in the state might not occur until the economy improves. And he says more jobs in the industry may be lost because of pharmaceutical company mergers and acquisitions.