How Takeovers and Mergers of The Upjohn Company Impacted the Kalamazoo and Portage, Michigan Communities

The Upjohn Company was founded in 1886 and was always run from Kalamazoo, Michigan. It was privately owned by Upjohn family members and prominent Kalamazoo businessmen until 1958, when it went public. Even after going public, it was still run by Upjohn family members or by leaders selected by the family. Employees had good wages, benefits and job security. When an Upjohn Company employee went to a local bank to get a loan or mortgage, just working at Upjohn got them an immediate approval. At one time, The Upjohn Company employed 8,000 people in the Kalamazoo and Portage areas.

Local philanthropy was a large component, often millions of dollars being given away. One example was a million dollars given to local governments in the 1990s to fund road improvements. Another example is the Upjohn Company bought an old Hilton Hotel in Downtown Kalamazoo for several million dollars, fixed it up and then sold it to Raddison. They spent this money to keep the Kalamazoo Downtown area vibrant. Numerous civic, arts and sports programs were funded by the company.

Alas, the corporation ran out of new products in the mid-1990s and had to merge with Pharmacia, a Swedish pharmaceutical company. Pharmacia & Upjohn was the new company name. One immediate change was the moving of headquarters from Portage to London, England but the Kalamazoo and Portage areas still contained research, manufacturing and sales. There were job losses, but they were done sensitively and with generous separation payments

In early 2000, Pharmacia & Upjohn merged with Monsanto and was renamed Pharmacia. The only goal for Pharmacia CEO Fred Hassan was to slim down the company and make it an attractive takeover target. The headquarters and all sales and marketing (all the best paying jobs) were now in New Jersey instead of Kalamazoo or Portage. There were more local job losses but research and manufacturing in Kalamazoo and Portage were still going strong.

Pfizer bought Pharmacia in 2003. At that time, it is estimated there were 6,000 Pharmacia employees in the Kalamazoo-Portage area. Pfizer headquarters was and still is in Manhattan, and corporate leadership had that well-known New York City arrogance and attitude. Additionally, two Pfizer CEOs in that era, Hank McKinnell and Jeffrey Kindler, were both fired for poor performance. By 2010, Pfizer had shut down all pharmaceutical research in Downtown Kalamazoo, which meant laying off 3,000 people. This was devastating to Downtown Kalamazoo businesses. Another 3,000 research jobs in Michigan were lost when Pfizer closed their former-Parke Davis Ann Arbor research complex. Pfizer also shut down their Holland, Michigan production facility. Layoffs were done brutally. Many corporation buildings were sold or demolished. Local governments took a major hit as property tax payments dwindled or ceased.

In the late 2000’s, Pfizer New York leadership made the decision to shut down all manufacturing at the Portage site. Due to very fortunate timing and one executive insisting the manufacturing operations be kept open for his business needs, complete closure did not occur. If this closure of the Portage site had occurred, there would have been no Pfizer presence at all in the Kalamazoo and Portage areas. They would literally have shut down or sold everything The Upjohn Company had built.

All Pfizer animal health pharmaceutical operations were spun off as a separate company, called Zoetis, in 2013. Zoetis has done very well locally since the spin-off and is now a large employer in Kalamazoo and Portage.

Since those difficult and turbulent early years, Pfizer has been willing to invest in improving the physical plant for Kalamazoo/Portage manufacturing operations, including a recent $400M sterile products manufacturing building. However, employees are still expendable, layoffs occuring each Fall. Recent groups eliminated include the active ingredient manufacturing process research group and the bulk active ingredient sales team. Current local leadership is doing a great job running the manufacturing site and treating employees as well as they can, but the local budget is set by Pfizer NYC leadership and it doesn't allow for anything other than bare survival.

Local philanthropy by Pfizer is very limited, if any at all. It’s been estimated that Pfizer currently has 2,000 jobs in Portage and has another 1500 contractors working on site.

In summary, mergers and takeovers of the original Upjohn Company over the last 30 years have been devastating to the Kalamazoo and Portage communities. Six thousand jobs have been lost, including all the best-paying ones. Local philanthropy is just a tiny trickle. Local governments were hurt by reduced or no property tax payments. All Pfizer presence in Downtown Kalamazoo is gone. It’s only by a lucky chance that anything at all of the old Upjohn Company remains in the Portage area.

October 2025