AstraZeneca, the UK's second-biggest drugmaker, said on Thursday that it expects to cut a further 6,000 jobs worldwide during the next four years.

The job losses come on top of 7,600 redundancies that the company announced last year and mean that, along with other “business reshaping activities”, AstraZeneca will have reduced its total headcount by more than 13,000 by 2013.

The company said that, as a result of the move, it expected to save an annual $2.5 billion (£1.7 billion), with about $2.1 billion in savings expected before the end of 2010 and the rest to follow by 2013.

AstraZeneca's head office is in Macclesfield, Cheshire, and it has sites at Alderley Park, Cheshire; Loughborough, Leicestershire, Bristol, Luton and London. The company promised full consultation with works councils, trade unions and other employee representatives before confirming details of the job cuts.

The news came as AstraZeneca reported a 13 per cent rise in full-year pre-tax profits, to $10.49 billion, with profits for the last three months of 2008 rising by 12 per cent to $2.6 billion.

The figures were ahead of market expectations and the company also reported a 10 per cent rise in the annual dividend. However, after David Brennan, the chief executive, warned that 2009 sales would only be “in line with 2008 levels” the shares immediately fell, closing down 180p, or 6.3 per cent, at £26.80.

Mr Brennan said in his statement: “The exact outcome is dependent, in part, on the extent of the impact of global economic conditions experienced over the course of the year.”

Manoj Ladwa, derivatives broker at ETX Capital, said: “Although investors will be encouraged by AstraZeneca's decision to raise its dividend, the focus will be on how the company plans to maintain its position as No 2 in the UK market. Despite a large pipeline of potential drugs to hit the market, the lack of sales growth forecast for 2009 is likely to spook the market.”

Sales of Nexium, an ulcer treatment, which is AstraZeneca's biggest-selling drug, were down 2 per cent during the year at $5.2 billion - with sales down by 8 per cent in the drug's most important market, the United States, and also down by a “significant” amount in Germany.

But sales of Crestor, the cholesterol drug, rose by 26 per cent to $3.59 billion. They grew at an even faster rate — 30 per cent — during the last three months of the year after a recent clinical trial suggesting that the drug also helps to prevent heart attacks for people with healthy cholesterol levels.

The figures follow a ruling overnight, from the US District Court in Orlando, Florida, in favour of the company. Two lawsuits, claiming that Seroquel, AstraZeneca's anti-depression drug, caused diabetes and other health problems, were thrown out by US District Judge Anne Conway. The decision means that the company will avoid a trial that was due to start next Monday.

AstraZeneca faces about 9,000 lawsuits, tabled by more than 15,000 American plaintiffs, over claims that Seroquel causes diabetes. Seroquel is the company's second-biggest seller after Nexium.

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