Lilly Eliminating 500 Indianapolis Jobs

This is depressing news. Indianapolis' flagship company, Eli Lilly, announces it will lay off 500 workers in Indianpolis through a buyout program. According to the Star's John Russell, the job reduction will bring Lilly's Central Indiana headcount down to 12,000 from the 14,000 level it reached in 2004. Russell writes:

Most of the cuts, up to 430 jobs, would come in the company's manufacturing operations, at facilities that make the active pharmaceutical ingredients for insulin products Humalog and Humulin as well as for the osteoporisis medicine Forteo. The remainder of the cuts, up to another 70 jobs, would come from Lilly's research and development operations.

"For several years, we have focused on strategic efforts to lower costs, increase flexibility and improve productivity across the business," said John C. Lechleiter, Lilly's president and chief executive, in a statement. "This strategy calls for reducing investments in some areas while increasing investments in others, and the streamlining decisions announced today are an example of this."