AstraZeneca to cut thousands of research jobs

AstraZeneca is to cut 8,000 jobs in the next five years as it outsources much more of its research and development, the firm has announced.The pharmaceutical giant is to farm out more work to outside researchers, some of whom will be in China, in an effort to reduce annual operating costs by £1.2 billion. It will also concentrate its research on fewer diseases and increasingly buy promising products from other companies rather than developing new ones itself from scratch. The move will mean thousands of posts will be lost at the firm’s western bases in the US and Europe.