ZURICH, April 9 (Reuters) - Novartis is to cut

up to 680 jobs in its development organisation, which helps

bring its drugs to market, the Swiss pharmaceuticals company

said on Tuesday.

Around 440 jobs will go in Switzerland and up to 240 in the

United States over the next two to three years, the Basel-based

company said.

The job eliminations are separate from a restructuring

programme which could lead up to 8,000 of Novartis's 78,000

global workforce being cut, it said.

Rival Swiss drugmaker Roche also announced earlier

this year that it was cutting 345 jobs in product development.

Novartis currently employs around 12,500 in development

which includes handling drug regulations, analytics, and support

functions like quality assurance.

The staff are also involved in designing the production

process for drugs after research work has been completed.

Around 3,000 of the roles are currently in Switzerland and

2,000 in the United States, meaning around 14% of the positions

in those countries will be affected.

Meanwhile, the company said it would add roles over the next

two to three years, meaning there will be a net reduction

overall of 1-2% at a global level.

Novartis said the changes were designed to reshape its

capabilities to access local talent such as data scientists and

regulation specialists in Britain.

It said it still remained committed to development work in

both Switzerland and the United States.

"We remain committed to development in Switzerland as our

innovation hub for complex development, and providing strategic

leadership as the global headquarters for development," a

spokesperson said.

"The US remains a key development hub with strong

representation in our global program teams, responsible for

advancing our medicines pipeline."

(Reporting by John Revill; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)