Ministry knew of Abbott’s plans to shut Dutch R&D unit

The economic affairs ministry knew US pharmaceutical giant Abbott was planning to shut its R&D division in Weesp near Amsterdam and had tried to save the 510 jobs, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Abbott announced plans to close the unit and shift research to the US. In July, Merck said it was shutting down its research unit in Oss as well as some production facilities, with the loss of over 2,000 jobs.
The FD says the ministry sent a senior civil servant to the US to try to head off the Abbott closure, but without success.
Economic affairs minister Maria van der Hoeven is currently on her way to the US to discuss the Merck closures, the paper says.
The government came in for a lot of criticism when the Merck job losses were first announced for not taking any action to try to keep the unit open.