Pfizer is ending research programs to identify new drugs for treating Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
A recent article in Fortune reported that Pfizer is laying off 300 employees from the neuroscience discovery and early development programs in Massachusetts Connecticut, as it redistributes the money spent on research, according to the emailed statement.
“This was an exercise to re-allocate spend across our portfolio, to focus on those areas where our pipeline, and our scientific expertise, is strongest,” the company said.
Pfizer has invested in research for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and is one of several drugmakers, that is part of the Dementia Discovery Fund, a venture capital fund launched in 2015 by industry and government groups that seeks to develop treatments for Alzheimer’s.
In 2012, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson stopped work on bapineuzumab after it did not assist patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s in its second round of clinical trials.
The company said it will launch a new venture fund to invest in neuroscience research projects.