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LONDON - British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline said Wednesday the group would axe 1,000 jobs or 12 percent of its sales workforce in the United States.
A company spokeswoman told AFP that the GSK would reduce its US sales team by about 1,000 positions to about 7,500 people.
"There are approximately 1,000 jobs being lost by the end of 2008," the spokeswoman said.
A total of 1,800 US sales jobs were being cut, but some workers would be transferred into the vaccines division.
"The reductions are not being made across the board," she added.
The pharmaceutical sector faces increasing competition from generic drugmakers, and as a result many companies are looking to cut costs.
GSK is the latest drugs giant to announce job losses after similar announcements this year by German pharmaceutical and chemical group Merck and US group Schering-Plough.
GSK revealed last month that third-quarter net profits sank heavily owing partly to competition from generic drugs.
Net profits dived 21.6 percent to 1.03 billion pounds (1.31 billion euros, 1.68 billion dollars) in the three months to the end of September, compared with the same period of 2007.
Turnover increased by 7.4 percent 5.882 billion pounds during the third quarter.
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