Pfizer Inc. plans to close its Arnprior, Ont., plant that makes Viagra and other drugs because it can produce them more cheaply somewhere else.

About 195 employees will be affected when the plant closes at the end of 2008.

Plant manager John Carkner said Wednesday that Pfizer plans to close the plant because it is not equipped to manufacture the next generation of drugs

"The facility is busy right now," he told CBC News. "Pfizer does have many successful products that we manufacture here, but this is a look to the future. When the patents run out, Arnprior won't fit."

Carkner said Pfizer is negotiating to sell the plant to another pharmaceutical company. But if the sale is unsuccessful, the company will start issuing pink slips or transferring employees elsewhere.

About 20 positions could be moved to Pfizer's other operations.

'Capable facility'

The Arnprior plant is efficient, the company said, but so are several others in the company network. Company officials also said products such as Viagra and Reactine can be made elsewhere at cheaper costs.

"The Arnprior site is a capable facility and our colleagues there have made important contributions to our organization over many years," said MacDara Lynch, Pfizer's vice-president of manufacturing for the eastern U.S. and Canada.

"Following two major acquisitions by Pfizer since 2000, our manufacturing network has an excess of capacity worldwide, which has required us to undertake a review of our manufacturing operations and make some difficult decisions."

Pfizer has closed 31 plants around the world in the past three years, leaving it with 62.

The departure of one of Arnprior's most-valued employers concerned Mayor Terry Gibeau, who said the town will take a significant economic hit if it loses close to 200 well-paying jobs and a major part of its tax base.

In operation for five decades

He said he will try to persuade Pfizer to keep the plant open or sell it to another pharmaceutical manufacturer.

The plant produces prescription and consumer health-care products such as Viagra, Reactine, Norvasc and Visine.

New York-based Pfizer, the largest pharmaceutical company in the world, has operated a plant in Arnprior for half a century.

It has operations in Toronto, Calgary, Kirkland, Que., and the Ontario municipalities of Mississauga and Arnprior, a town 60 kilometres west of Ottawa.

It employs more than 2,000 Canadians, including more than 1,300 in pharmaceuticals, approximately 300 in the consumer health-care division and 100 in veterinary products.