NORWICH – Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals has entered into contract negotiations with an unnamed global biopharmaceutical company for outsourcing the development work it conducts at its Woods Corners facility in Norwich.
The ongoing negotiations, if successful, would likely lead to closure of the technical center over a two-year period. The announcement was made locally Tuesday morning. P&G currently employs 180 in Norwich, down from 700 just seven years ago when the Cincinnati-based company also owned and operated the Eaton Center on Eaton Avenue and a manufacturing facility in North Norwich.
“The business operations that we are doing here would be split up, with some to our outsourcing contracting partner and some retained within P&G, which would likely transfer to our Mason business center in Ohio,” site manager Steven Cammarn said Tuesday afternoon.
If the negotiations aren’t successful, Cammarn said operations would continue as normal in Norwich.
Company employees were informed of the pending development at a meeting Tuesday morning. Site External Relations Leader Scott Docherty said the announcement was “not that the Woods Corners Technical Center is closing, but an announcement that we are in negotiations. Those negotiations are a large variable. No decision has been made.”
“We still have a lot of important work to do here for our customers,” Cammarn said. “None of the work here is changing right now.”
The executives said there were no arrangements for relocating employees at this time.
News this week that Outsourcing Services Group, based in New Jersey, would be selling its operations in North Norwich was “purely coincidental,” Cammarn said. OSG is one of P&G Pharmaceuticals’ contract manufacturers; however the two developments have no relationship, he said.
There were 600 employees in 2001 before P&G spun off the manufacturing plant in North Norwich, which later became known as OSG Norwich Pharmaceuticals.
Rumors about the possible development began surfacing two months ago within the community, many confirming it was the beginning of the end of the business begun in Norwich back in 1890. (See sidebar.) The company employed nearly 2,000 in its heyday during the mid-20th century.
Chenango County Board of Supervisors Chairman Richard B. Decker said he is hopeful that P&G “would be able to work it out for their employees.” Commerce Chenango President Maureen Carpenter said when and if the time comes, that the Chamber would be available to help employees through transitioning, facility promotion and business redevelopment.
Long-time former president of Norwich Eaton Pharmaceuticals, John M. Kolbas - who came to the company in 1975 from Clinton-based Bristol Myers Squibb - said he always felt that P&G was “fairly good at dealing with us” since the consumer products giant took over in 1982.
“It’s unfortunate that the economics of the pharmaceutical industry have changed to the point where it is now,” he said Tuesday. “Time and change moves on, and we have to kind of face the reality of that, that it occurs all of the time.”
Kolbas said he didn’t expect the operations at Woods Corners to cease, however. “I personally don’t think that that’s a business or operation that can’t continue. It used to be P&G products and before that, Norwich Eaton Products. It has been converted to other things since. As long as they can continue with their accounts, I don’t think anything serious would happen to them. It’s a business that I think someone could continue to operate.” Kolbas retired in 1989.
Former employee James I. Dunne, whose career spanned 25 years in the quality assurance department beginning in 1961, said, “P&G has always done their best to do the right thing by Norwich.”