Defense contractors large and small have been making preemptive moves to cut costs in advance of whatever Washington does.
Last week, Boeing Co. said it would sell buildings, cut managers, and squeeze suppliers to produce $1.6 billion in savings through 2015. It's not clear how those moves might affect Boeing's military-rotorcraft complex in Delaware County.
Orbit said it will begin to move production and administrative functions from its Integrated Combat Systems operations in Louisville, Ky., to its factory in Quakertown. That 50,000-square-foot Bucks County plant is where Orbit makes LCD displays for helicopters, jet fighters, and armored vehicles.
The company did not say how many people would be affected, only that it expected "annualized salary savings" of more than $550,000.
Orbit, which had 2011 net sales of $31 million, employed a total of 150 people as of March 15.
Orphan-drug status
Morphotek Inc., which I wrote about in August when it dedicated its new pilot plant in Uwchlan Township, has become quite a home for orphan drugs.
The Food and Drug Administration granted "orphan-drug" status to its amatuximab, an investigational cancer drug to treat a disease that afflicts just 2,500 people in the United States each year. Malignant pleural mesothelioma affects the lining of the lungs.
The federal Orphan Drug Act was intended to encourage drugmakers to pursue experimental new treatments for rare diseases that strike fewer than 200,000 Americans. As an incentive, the law grants market exclusivity to the drugmaker for seven years from the date the FDA approves the drug.
Amatuximab is currently in Phase 2 studies.
Morphotek, a unit of Japan's Eisai Co. Ltd., has been granted orphan-drug status for several other cancer treatments. None has received FDA approval.
Contact Mike Armstrong at 215-854-2980 or marmstrong@phillynews.com, or @PhillyInc on Twitter. Read his blog, "PhillyInc," at www.phillyinc.biz.
