Swiss drugs group Novartis is planning to cut or transfer up to 4,000 jobs, newspaper NZZ am Sonntag reported on Sunday, citing an internal email. The plan affecting up to 6% of its pharmaceuticals workforce comes on top of a programme to reduce the number of production sites and is part of a larger drive to cut costs, the newspaper said. Global drugmakers are under increasing pressure from investors to step up restructuring as patents on best-selling drugs expire and governments try to keep a lid on health costs. The daily said it received a statement from Novartis saying that the overall number of employees should remain ?relatively stable? in 2014. The paper said that a significant part of the 4,000 jobs will be transferred to Hyderabad, where Novartis rented an office building able to house 8,000 employees.
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