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When Eli Lilly & Co. completes its announced plans to sell three local subsidiaries, the pharmaceutical giant will have no corporate presence in San Diego. It's not because of anything the city did, the firm maintains, just the latest step in an ongoing Lilly campaign to cut costs.
Lilly announced Jan. 18 that it would sell nine units in three states, including Hybritech Inc., San Diego's oldest and largest biotechnology firm, Pacific Biotech Inc. and IVAC Corp., a major medical device maker.
Spokesman David Pomfret referred to Lilly's other sales as evidence that geography was not a factor. Aside from the three San Diego units, Lilly plans to sell subsidiaries in the San Francisco Bay area, St. Paul, Minn., Temecula and Seattle.
The subsidiaries are either diagnostic or medical device units, Pomfret said. Lilly is shedding the divisions to concentrate on its...