The business stories that matter, by Fortune's Colin Barr
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December 5, 2007, 12:37 pm

Bristol-Myers swings the ax

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) is swinging the ax. The big pharmaceuticals company said Wednesday it will cut 10% of its staff in what it grandly calls a “productivity transformation initiative.” The firings and related moves will save Bristol $1.5 billion annually by 2010, the company says. In cutting back Bristol-Myers joins rivals such as Pfizer (PFE), which earlier this year set plans to cut 10,000 jobs, and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), which has targeted 5,000 job cuts. A 10% cut at Bristol-Myers should mean the loss of about 4,300 jobs, going by figures on Yahoo! Finance.

Bristol is also dropping some businesses that don’t fit with its new focus on becoming what it calls “a next-generation BioPharma company,” and says it plans on making more strategic acquisitions in specialty medicines and biologics. So far, Wall Street is unimpressed: Shares dropped 1% in midday trading.

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Colin Barr covers business and finance for Fortune.com. Previously he was an editor at TheStreet.com and author of the weekly Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street column, and an editor at Dow Jones Newswires.
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