Caretaker prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende is to telephone the CEO of pharmaceuticals giant Merck about the closure of the company’s Organon R&D unit in Oss, according to economic affairs minister Maria van der Hoeven.

Van der Hoeven made the statement during a debate on the closure in parliament on Wednesday, the NRC reports. MPs returned from their summer break for the debate about the loss of nearly 2,200 jobs in the Noord Brabant town.
The NRC says French president Nicolas Sarkozy phoned CEO Richard Clark when he heard Merck was shutting down laboratories in France – with success.
Now Balkenende is to make a similar call, Van der Hoeven said. The aim is not to reverse the decision, which would give rise to false hope, but to ‘get a firm commitment from Merck,’ she said.
Van der Hoeven said she had phoned Clark on Monday and that he had committed Merck to making money and expertise available for the development of a life sciences business park in the town.
Business plan
How much money Merck will donate will only be apparent when the business plan is completed, she told MPs.
However, experts doubt the life science business park plan will have much success, the Financieele Dagblad reports.
‘I don’t know of any without a university,’ economics professor Alfred Kleinknegt of Delft University told the paper.
Merck announced earlier this month it is shutting down the entire R&D division in Oss and transferring its women’s health research to the US.
Around 1,000 high-skilled jobs will go through the closure of the R&D department. The rest of the jobs will be lost in production