Following the global strategy of its parent firm, Pfizer India has initiated a process of trimming down its staff cadres luring them with hefty compensation packages.

Exact number of the staff, being offered the pink slip, is not immediately available.However, it could well be in line with the 10 per cent announced by the New York-based Pfizer Inc at the beginning of the year, sources said. Pfizer India has a total headcount of 2200 staff in various operations in India as per official figures.

The Indian arm of the world's top drug maker has not announced any VRS scheme across the board. Instead, it is learnt to have chosen a different approach - "pick and choose"- Here, it handpicks a select few and offers a package they cannot resist.

Evidently, middle-level managers in the sales force is the most targeted group. Compensation packages have been offered to nearly a quarter of 120-strong district managers (DMs) and about one third of the 16 regional business manager (RBM) cadres. While, the top-level sales managers and the 700-odd professional service officers (PSOs) -the lowest wrung in the field force -left intact.

Recently, Pfizer India has reconfigured sales division and re-aligned its sales zones as part of its programme to have a "more efficient, effective'' sales force. Currently the company has 6 regional offices-Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkatta, Chennai, Lucknow and Hyderabad.

In the administrative level as well, Pfizer's VRS offer has been accepted by at least 5 officials in the middle and senior levels belonging to distribution, finance and medical departments. These positions include that of company secretary and head of distribution division.

Another segment, which could face the axe, is those who are involved in training the field staff. Pfizer India has also decided to shut down its biometrics division with a staff of over 30 and sought to outsource the activity.

According to sources the company is offering compensatory packages somewhere in the region of Rs 20 - 40 lakhs considering the position held by the employee, number of years in service, etc.

When contacted, officials from the Mumbai-based firm confirmed the development. "We are carrying out a restructuring activity by cutting down the staff strength across all the levels of the staff structure. Unlike open VRS, the company is offering retirement options to staff according to the achievement of each department and team and to betterment the results in future,'' a company spokesperson said.

"Pfizer India has re-structured teams so that those working in common areas across different job profiles, can now optimally operate together…We have created some new positions, enhanced existing job roles and reconsidered the relevance of certain positions across different levels in the organisation. Employees best suited for enhanced and new roles have been reassigned thereby giving opportunities to learn, contribute and grow within the company,'' the official added.

In January 2007, The New York based Pfizer Inc's new chairman Jeffrey Kindler announced the company's plans to cut down 10 per cent of its 100,000 work force as part of restructuring to save $2 billion in costs following the late stage failure of torcetrapib. Pfizer was pinning hope on the HDL-booster torcetrapib to offset the returns from its $13 billion obesity drug Lipitor post patent expiry.

Pfizer's operations started in India way back in 1950, through a company named Dumex Limited. Full scale operations started in 1959 when the company acquired control of Dumex, which became a 40 percent owned subsidiary of Pfizer Inc., USA. Later the company has strengthened its hold in the country with two mergers, with the Indian arms of Parke Davis & Co and Pharmacia Healthcare Ltd, following the global amalgamation of the companies with Pfizer.

In the second-quarter of the current financial year, the company's profit multiplied more than seven times, to Rs 2.58 billion ($63 million) in the three months ended May 31, from Rs 358.9 million in the corresponding period of last year. The net result has boosted by about a 13-fold increase in income from businesses other than selling medicines and aided by the 'other income', revenue more than doubled to Rs 4.56 billion from Rs 1.9 billion.