Merck is planning to lay off 163 employees at its Cherokee manufacturing plant in Riverside, Pennsylvania. The job cuts will happen in three rounds, with the first set to occur in May 2025. The second round of layoffs will take effect in late June through July.
The final round is set for “sometime in 2026,” according to the company. Merck has been phasing out the antibiotics manufacturing plant for several years. The site previously produced nonsterile imipenem and cilastatin for the antibiotics Primaxin/Tienam and Recarbrio, plus ertapenem sodium for Invanz.
Now that production at the facility has ended, a permanent site closure is expected “sometime in 2026,” a company representative confirmed.
Merck layoffs planned for 2025
“Separations related to this closure will begin in May 2025, and we are committed to assisting and supporting employees at the site through this transition and providing separation benefits,” the spokesperson said.
Last year, the local newspaper The Daily Item noted that Merck employed 300 people at the site, making it one of the area’s largest employers. The drugmaker’s roots in the area stretch back decades. Prior to the plant sale to a contract manufacturer in 2008, the company had operated the site for 58 years.
Merck has an overall Pennsylvania headcount of some 14,000 staffers and “remains committed” to the state with over $3 billion invested in its state-wide manufacturing operations to date, the company’s spokesperson said. Meanwhile, over in the Carolinas, the company is busy building out its Durham, North Carolina, campus with the addition of a $1 billion, 225,000-square-foot facility that will produce bulk substance for Merck’s Gardasil HPV vaccine. Merck has spent a total of more than $12 billion expanding its U.S. manufacturing and R&D capabilities since 2018, with another $8 billion earmarked for U.S. capital investment through 2028.
Photo by; Chris Murray on Unsplash
