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Published Fri, Jul 01, 2011 04:21 AM
Modified Thu, Jun 30, 2011 09:53 PM

Merck to close Inspire facility

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STAFF WRITER JOHN MURAWSKI

Pharmaceutical giant Merck, which recently completed its $430 million acquisition of Inspire Pharmaceuticals, is closing that company's Raleigh headquarters Aug. 31 and eliminating 51 jobs.

Merck notified North Carolina officials Wednesday of its plans to shut down the headquarters. "The entire facility is to be closed," Merck wrote in the letter to the N.C. Department of Commerce.

Last month, Merck said it planned to close Inspire's local headquarters before the end of the year. At that time, the company had about 60 workers in Raleigh. Merck bought Inspire to expand its lineup of treatments for eye ailments.

Inspire was founded in 1995 on research conducted at UNC-Chapel Hill and went public in 2000. It had 240 employees at the outset of this year, but cut 27 percent of its workforce in February after its experimental treatment for cystic fibrosis unexpectedly failed in clinical trials. That failure, after 10 years and $120 million spent on the drug's development, triggered the company's sale.

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