This morning we can confirm that Grey New York notified “under 30” staffers that their employment with the agency will end in January.
The cause of the reduction is client Eli Lilly, which recently decided to consolidate work for one of its many pharmaceutical products under an alternate agency on its roster.
Grey has worked with Lilly for nearly 20 years and won a greater share of the business from G2 back in 2012; its Grey Healthy People unit, launched in 2011 to handle a growing roster of related brands from Lilly, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and others, continues to operate (though the name itself has been retired).
Despite reductions that seem to have touched all departments, the agency’s relationship with the client will, for the most part, continue unaffected. The move concerns the diabetes drug Humalog, and Grey will retain other Eli Lilly brands including its best-known product, Cialis.
In a statement, Grey says that it chose to give employees advance notice in order to help them find new positions as soon as possible, noting that its New York office is currently “over 1,000 people strong” and that it has hired 75 new staffers in 2014.
At the moment, we do not know which agency will handle the diabetes work moving forward. Updates as they come in.