AstraZeneca, Britain’s second-largest drugmaker, yesterday unveiled plans to shed a further 4,600 jobs as part of an extended cost-cutting drive aimed at restoring competitiveness in the face of a string of patent expiries on key drugs from 2010.

In February the company announced 3,000 job losses, bringing the total announced this year to 7,600 – or 11 per cent of AstraZeneca’s 66,000-strong 2006 global workforce.

David Brennan, chief executive, said the cuts would slash $900 million (£438 million) from costs by 2010 through a radical reshaping of the business. He said the latest cuts would include 700 research jobs and thousands more across sales and marketing, regulatory affairs and IT. AstraZeneca recently signed a $1.4 billion seven-year IT outsourcing deal with IBM.

Mr Brennan hinted there could be more cuts to come. The restructure is linked to efforts to transform the firm from a conventional pharmaceuticals maker into a biotechnology specialist.

AstraZeneca said the changes would cost $1.6 billion to implement, and also announced a slide in second-quarter pretax profits, to $2 billion from $2.2 billion in the same period last year. The profits downturn was in part attributed to the costs of the restructuring and a $376 million charge associated with the $15.6 billion acquisition in May of the US biotechnology firm MedImmune. That deal was widely criticised as too expensive.

Sales rose 10 per cent to $7.3 billion during the quarter, driven by a 38 per cent surge in sales of Crestor, its blockbuster anti-cholesterol drug.

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