BioMarin Pharmaceuticals is consolidating employees tied to the acquired company’s headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey, shortly after finalizing a $4.8 billion deal with fellow rare disease company Amicus Therapeutics.
Starting in August, 58 positions will be eliminated at Amicus headquarters in Princeton, according to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) filed this week in New Jersey. According to the layoff notice, the layoffs are scheduled to end around the end of October (PDF).
A BioMarin spokesperson confirmed in an emailed statement to Fiers that the job cuts are related to the acquisition.
“With the completion of the acquisition, we will leverage BioMarin’s global scale, commercial reach and industry-leading manufacturing capabilities to build on Amicus’ legacy and bring its medicines to even more people living with Fabry and Pompe disease around the world,” the spokesperson explained.
“As with any combination of this scale, we are carefully evaluating how to align our organization for long-term success,” he continued. “This process has resulted in a reduction in employee numbers, particularly in areas of overlap.”
The company thanked Amicus employees for their contributions and said BioMarin remains focused on ensuring continuity for Amicus patients and providing support to its employees.
BioMarin did not immediately disclose its plans for the Princeton location or whether any layoffs were planned at Amicus’ other locations.
In addition to its Princeton location, which Amicus lists as its global headquarters on its website, Amicus also has a center of excellence in Philadelphia, its international headquarters in the United Kingdom, and offices in countries including Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Germany and Spain.
Late last year, BioMarin made the biggest deal in its history, making an amicus offer of $4.8 billion in a $14.50-per-share deal that would give it access to the approved Fabry disease drug Galafold and Pompe disease combination drug Ponbility Opfold. Alexander Hardy, BioMarin’s director of operations, estimates that both products could reach $1 billion each in peak sales.
In addition, BioMarin gained access to the promising amicus asset DMX-200, a first-in-class molecule with the potential to deliver a challenging Phase 3 challenge against the rare and potentially fatal kidney disease focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS).
Meanwhile, it’s not uncommon for major drug makers to downsize in the wake of major acquisitions, a trend that has continued in recent years with Amgen’s $27.8 billion acquisition of Horizon Therapeutics and Novartis’ €2.7 billion acquisition of German cancer biotech Morphosys, to name a few.
A similar story is being told with CAR-T biotech Arcelx, which Gilead Sciences completed late last month for $7.8 billion.
As part of the cell therapy company’s consolidation, Gilead is cutting approximately 192 jobs between its Arcelux locations in Redwood City, California, and Rockville, Maryland, which will eliminate the majority of the acquired company’s workforce, which stood at 209 people at the end of 2025.
