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October 4, 2010
Spamming For Site Shutdowns. Sheesh.
Posted by Derek
Well, this doesn't look encouraging. As part of its restructuring after buying Schering-Plough, Merck announced some time back that it's shedding the former Organon sites in Newhouse in Scotland and Schaijk in the Netherlands.
How's that going? Well, a correspondent forwarded me an unsolicited email he just received from "Partner International", the company hired by Merck to help divest these sites. And apparently Partner's strategy includes. . .spamming people with a one-page brochure touting this "Time Sensitive Acquisition Opportunity" for these "world class research opportunities".
My correspondent, regrettably, finds himself a bit short this month and unable to purchase either of these research sites. Perhaps someone else will idly browse their inbox and take Partner International up on this time-sensitive offer. If the message gets through the spam filter, that is.
Comments (9)
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1. Petros on October 4, 2010 9:40 AM writes...
The Oss site, but not the R&D effort there, has been saved for now.
I was there at a meeting the other week and heard on the Tuesday that Abbott was closing the Solvay sites in Europe!
Astellas was supposed to be telling the UK group of OSI their fate last week too
Permalink to Comment2. Anon on October 4, 2010 9:45 AM writes...
With consolidations, downsizing, moving work to India, China, it seems inevitable that there will be excess Pharma site capacities in Europe & US. Shire can only absorb so much....
Permalink to Comment3. JT on October 4, 2010 11:40 AM writes...
How much are they selling for? If it's in the same price range as the other products (VIIAAGRAA/KIALIS) I get spammed with, we can probably work out a deal!
Permalink to Comment4. Will on October 4, 2010 1:31 PM writes...
As soon as I complete my pending transactions with a Nigerian widow needing assistance accessing her late husband's vast fortune currently sitting in a Lagos bank I should have plenty of funding to apply to the purchase
Permalink to Comment5. John on October 4, 2010 2:47 PM writes...
Surpisingly to many, this type of email campaign is a common part of these type of divestiture campaigns. If your friend is not in finance or corporate development, it is likely that his name is similar to someone who is. I've participated in some of these campaigns, and the hard part is usually in getting accurate email addresses. The senior financial and corporate development positions at these companies often turnover every few years and commerical databases are usually hopelessly out of date. Needless to say, most companies don't put the email addresses of their senior execs on their websites.
Permalink to Comment6. Sayuri on October 5, 2010 4:26 AM writes...
to Petros:
Yesterday our CEO Astellas Mr. Nogimori was here at Astellas plant in Meppel (NL) for a visit.
Permalink to CommentDuring his presentation about future global strategies he was really pleased to report the OSI takeover. He was really pleased that Astellas succeeded in adding to our knowledge the OSI strong oncology expertise. When we asked about the future of OSI as company hementioned that now we have 500 Astellas colleagues more: OSI's people.
I hope this was including the people in UK.
7. xfin31 on October 5, 2010 7:05 AM writes...
Well, it's to be seen whether Merck make a better fist of it than in the past. Terlings Park in the UK is still lying empty 5 years after the shutdown. Go figure how that affected the cost/benefit calculations!
Permalink to Comment8. Anonymous on October 5, 2010 8:42 AM writes...
Well, why don't they think of putting large department stores in ex-R&D sites and employ the ex-R&D-staff as cooks, waiters, cleaners, mechanics, storekeepers, cashiers, ticket-sellers, etc....
Permalink to Comment9. Chris on October 5, 2010 10:13 AM writes...
I got one of these too. I didn't realize I was such a captain of industry. Doubt I have the room on my AMEX to buy it, sadly.
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