That rigor was felt last week in Collegeville, where Pfizer Inc. has a facility it inherited after buying Wyeth for $68 billion in January 2009.
The company laid off 88 pharmacists and nurses at the large facility, where they had handled reports of nonserious adverse events involving Pfizer drugs.
Since the merger, Pfizer has cut more than 20,000 jobs worldwide from the combined companies. It had 106,500 employees as of Sept. 30, including about 2,300 in Collegeville.
The latest work lost in Collegeville was outsourced to Accenture P.L.C., which has a health-care division. Accenture has a Center City office, but its facilities in the Indian cities of Bangalore and Chennai will handle the work from multiple time zones, 18 of the 24 hours in the day.
Pfizer pins hopes for increases in future profits to foreign markets, which already account for 60 percent of revenue.
"These are difficult decisions, but necessary to strengthen our business while enabling us to sustain our regulatory compliance worldwide," Pfizer spokeswoman Kristen Neese said via e-mail.
Pfizer's quarterly profit fell to $1.44 billion, or 19 cents per share. Revenue fell 3.5 percent from a year earlier, to $16.7 billion.
Lipitor faced generic competition after losing U.S. patent protection Nov. 30, and U.S. sales dropped 42 percent in the fourth quarter.
Still, Pfizer officials highlighted the results and prospects for Prevnar 13, which is used to treat pneumococcal diseases, and the kidney-cancer drug Inlyta, both of which involve Collegeville employees. Inlyta got approval Friday from the Food and Drug Administration, which brought smiles to faces in the oncology group.
Meanwhile, Pfizer said it was also looking to sublease laboratory space at its Collegeville campus.
