JOB losses are expected at Pfizer after the multinational drugs company acquired rival Phamacia for $60 billion two weeks ago.

The company, which employs 5,500 people at Sandwich, told workers on Tuesday that research and development jobs are at risk in the restructuring of the company--now one of the biggest in the world. There are 2,700 R and D staff at Sandwich.

But the site, Pfizer’s largest research and development facility outside the US, is set to grow overall as new R and D is transferred from other parts of the world.

Pfizer refused to release the number of redundancies but refuted rumours broadcast on regional television that there would be a thousand job losses.

Media relations director Kate Robins said: “Numbers would be misleading -- there will be heavy recruiting and some losses. We expect an employment gain over the next year. We will loose some functions and gain others.”

A hiring freeze implemented last year is said to have reduced the effect the cutbacks will have on the workforce.

Many employees will be offered voluntary redundancy or transfers to other sites in the UK or abroad while researchers from other Pfizer sites will be transferred to Sandwich. Some existing employees may be retrained to work on the new facilities.

Ms Robins said: “Research and development spending has tripled worldwide over the last decade and the marketing launch of new medicines is at a ten year low.”

“A lot of the medicines we have today were approved with trials of just hundreds of people rather than the thousands we need now.

“We have to work out how to work in a new environment.”