Company with deep NJ roots plans hundreds of more layoffs out of New Jersey

🔻NJ layoffs announced
🔻Over 500 out of one site
🔻Company has deep NJ roots

LAWRENCE (Mercer) — A pharmaceutical company with New Jersey roots deeper than a century ago has announced another round of massive layoffs.

Bristol Myers Squibb plans to cut 516 workers based in Mercer County between next week and March 2026.

Just four months ago, the company had announced 290 cuts in two separate filings with state labor officials.

That is in addition to more than 1,200 layoffs made public throughout 2024 by the company that has staff in four locations in New Jersey.

The company has employees at two separate Lawrenceville locations.

One is a sprawling 280-acre site along Route 206 with laboratories, offices and support services.

The other Lawrenceville site is the Princeton Pike campus, which opened not quite a decade ago.

There is also a three-story office building at West Windsor and a plant in New Brunswick that has been in continual use since the early 1900s.

Early NJ roots for Squibb, Bristol Myers

In 1905, E.R. Squibb & Sons purchased an ether manufacturing plant in the “wilds” of New Brunswick, according to the company’s timeline.

The following year, the Bristol-Myers pharmaceutical company (owned by William Bristol and John Myers) bought seven acres in Hillside to expand production of their top products.

In 1938, the Squibb Institute for Medical Research opened in New Brunswick. Squibb also opened the world’s largest penicillin production facility in 1944.

Meanwhile, Bristol-Myers continued to expand its Union County footprint, breaking ground in 1966 on a new research and development lab in Hillside.

In 1971, Squibb set up its worldwide headquarters in Princeton.

The companies merged in 1989.

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Within a decade, Bristol Myers Squibb again expanded in the Garden State, opening a 433-acre research campus in Hopewell.

In 2016, the Princeton Pike Campus opened. The 650,000-square-foot facility in Lawrence houses employees from various departments.

The latest cuts appeared related to Bristol Myers Squibb deciding to recenter some of its specific “viral vector production” at a Massachusetts location, BioSpace reported.

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