AbbVie’s Allergan aesthetics unit is tightening up its workforce with 202 layoffs.
The company disclosed the cuts, effective in July, in a recent California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notice.
Of the employees being let go, 19 work in person at the company's headquarters in Irvine, California, and the rest are remote, according to The Orange County Business Journal.
"This action reflects a reorganization to better position Allergan Aesthetics for sustained leadership within the dynamic aesthetics industry," a company spokesperson told Fierce Pharma in an emailed statement.
The company previously let go of 99 workers at the site in 2022.
In 2019, AbbVie purchased Allergan for $63 billion in an effort to diversify its revenue base before biosimilars encroached on the Illinois pharma giant's megablockbuster immunology drug, Humira, in 2023.
These days, revenue from Allergan’s aesthetics portfolio is on the decline, sinking 2.2% last year to $5.17 billion. The trend is continuing so far in 2025, with the unit's first-quarter sales falling 11.7% to $1.1 billion.
Both Botox and Juvederm have been faltering lately, resulting in double-digit sales declines in the most recent earnings period. Nonetheless, AbbVie still expects its aesthetics franchise to deliver a "high single-digit compound annual revenue growth rate” through 2029, the company said earlier this year.
Allergan management attributed the weakened sales to a new version of its aesthetics loyalty program, which many providers felt was “too complex,” causing the company to revert to the original loyalty program, Allergan’s global president Carrie Strom said on a company earnings call in February.
While much of the business unit’s sales still come from tried-and-true Botox injections and Juvederm fillers, Allergan is still expanding its product collection, including with Skinvive, a dermal filler approved in 2023 that features a novel skin-smoothing delivery mechanism.
Meanwhile, AbbVie’s Humira successors Skyrizi and Rinvoq are more than picking up the slack with their strong launches, bringing AbbVie’s immunology sales to $6.26 billion in the first quarter.
AbbVie’s Allergan isn’t the only large pharma company cutting workers lately. Bristol Myers Squibb recently disclosed plans to lay off 516 employees in New Jersey and Teva is planning to chop 8% of its staff through 2027 as both companies work to cut costs.