Novartis cuts 322 more jobs in East Hanover — its fourth round in five months

Novartis Pharmaceuticals is cutting 322 more jobs at its U.S. headquarters in East Hanover, according to a WARN Act notice filed with the New Jersey Department of Labor. The cuts take effect by October 2. It's the fourth round of layoffs at the East Hanover site in the past five months — the prior three rounds cut a combined 250 employees, putting the five-month total at the site close to 600.

The July filing

What's known about who's affected

The WARN filing itself doesn't specify positions. Trade outlet Fierce Pharma, citing its own reporting, said the cuts mainly affect Novartis's field sales, patient support, and marketing organizations. A company spokesperson framed the changes as an effort to "enhance operational efficiency" and direct resources "where they can have the greatest impact," language consistent with the company's public statements on its three prior rounds of East Hanover cuts this year.

The pattern at East Hanover this year

The wider context: cutting here, investing there

The East Hanover reductions are part of a much larger restructuring Novartis has been running since 2022, aimed at eliminating roughly 8,000 positions globally — about 7% of its workforce — as the company prepares for the loss of patent protection on two of its biggest drugs, the heart medicine Entresto and the psoriasis biologic Cosentyx. Since that restructuring began, Novartis has cut well over 1,000 New Jersey jobs across multiple waves.

At the same time, the company isn't shrinking everywhere. In April 2025, Novartis announced plans to invest more than $23 billion over five years to expand its U.S. manufacturing, research, and technology operations — a buildout the company says will let it produce 100% of its key medicines domestically, start to finish. Reconciling those two facts is straightforward on paper: commercial and field-facing roles are being cut while manufacturing and R&D investment continues. What that nets out to for East Hanover specifically — a corporate campus built around exactly the functions being cut — is a fair question the company's public statements haven't directly addressed.

Why this matters locally

East Hanover has been home to Novartis's U.S. headquarters for decades, and the site remains one of Morris County's largest employers, with thousands of workers across research, clinical operations, manufacturing support, and corporate functions. A reduction approaching 600 positions in five months — even distributed across a large campus — is a meaningful shift in the local economy, and it comes amid a broader wave of 2026 pharmaceutical layoffs statewide, including recent cuts at Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, and other major New Jersey drugmakers.