2016 Merck Vaccine Division

Cuts are coming and have been planned

 

Contract reps are here again and reps are moving on to other divisions, while others are interviewing now. Get ready as the end of the year will be here soon. Good luck....

 

Start with the treacherous suck up VKCL near Detroit, Michigan. He barely calls on anybody and has the reps do his work for him.

 

Sanofi Pasteur rep here.... I'm curious as to why everyone is so nervous. Hexavalent should be coming soon.. will hopefully put dinosaur Pediarix out of it's misery and revitalize the Merck ped vaccine shares. We were told you Merck reps will have a significant stake in the launch and will compete not with us but with VaxServe.
Is no one excited about this?

 

The idiots running the Vaccine Division are former tablet people who think the Holy Grail of success is to grow the adult Vaccine market. You know, the primary care docs who hate dealing with reimbursement and who forget or could care less about vaccinations because they are more focused on other life threatening conditions (diabetes, cancer, chronic lung conditions, chronic heart conditions, etc.). If it wasn't for Gardasil 9 these idiots would completely turn their backs on the pediatric market which brings in billions of dollars a year and spend all their time on a shingles Vaccine that doesn't come close to a billion a year in sales because the efficay and reimbursement suck and a 30 plus year old pneumococcal Vaccine that's getting killed by a new Prevnar 13 which has better reimbursement and a sales team that only sells that one product. Real geniuses in the Vaccine Division. They might as well sell off the pediatric portfolio even though it outsells the adult portfolio by billions.

 

The beauty about vaccines is that there is no patent expiry so even if we dont buy more vaccines there will always be products to sell.

In ped vaccines theres nothing left to grow. Its just a battle for marketshare. In adult vaccines there is opportunity for growth since very few have been vaccinated. Thats why we sell adult and HPV. Seems like a smart move to me.

 

We've barely made a dent in Adult and have focused on it for 5 years. While doing that, GSK has significantly grown Rotarix, Havrix, Engerix, and Pediarix. I'm not saying give up on adult but don't put all your time in adult. There was no good reason to become multi specialty in 2011. They could have left the folks alone calling on Pediatrics and the adult immunization professionals to call on primary care. When Merck tried to add to the adult portfolio by licensing agreements the products they picked up sucked or had bad AE (Afluria, Td).

The only good idea that leadership came up with was having reps call on Pharmacies too which is where most of the adult growth had been coming from. The idea that a primary care doctor is going to vaccinate like a pediatrician ain't going to happen anytime soon. You have to get that mindset change starting in the medical schools. Good luck with that.

Also during these 5 years we have had layoffs amongst Vaccine Customer Reps, CTL's (which I don't care), the initiation and elimination of the Pharmacy Vaccine Reps and the reduction of the National Adult Vaccine Account Managers. If they would have kept existing reps focused on Pediatrics and reps focused on Primary Care/Pharmacy, we wouldn't be having layoffs every 2 years. However, Merck wants to keep having layoffs because it helps the stock price. Merck also knows access is almost gone and big IDS groups don't want to deal with reps who can't do anything to lower prices or add any real value to an IDS group (handing out patient ed and offering immunization initiatives for a 2 to 3% discount doesn't cut it when Merck raises the prices by 7% or more) which is why all of these CTL's are grabbing these account manager positions. Get ready for more call centers phone reps, more contract reps and less full time door to door sales reps.

It gets harder each year to stay loyal to Merck because they continue to find ways to push folks out, especially those with the old pensions that really start to grow after 15 years. For those of us in that 15 year or up group, watch your back. We are dwindling.

 

Can't wait to see who they bring in to lead the us marketing for p23 and z....I'll put money on it that they are ass kissing geniuses who will say yes to everything that comes out of the mouths of our clueless leaders. Watch out for all the finger pointing headed squarely at field sales!

 

I like you because you have passion but you have to realize that our jobs aren't going to be more secure by going after the hepatitis market or any of the ped vaccines for that matter. The products sell themselves, and the only real differentiator is price. So if mother Merck decided ped was the way to go do you think they'd continue to pay us to show up in person to talk contracts or a less expense phone rep who can easily talk contracting over the phone.

Like it or not adult vaccines = job security. They are more difficult to sell but isn't that the whole intent of our jobs?

 

I appreciate your response. You are right, there may be no long term future in staying in Pediatrics but we have lost quite a bit of share in the hep a, hep b and rota market. Also, the long term future sucks for Zosta and P23 with P13 kicking butt with reimbursement and a more efficacious shingles vaccine coming from GSK. Again, I am not saying completely abandon the primary care market but to literally spend almost all of our time in there and get minimal gains isn't the answer either.

GSK knows we spend all our time in adults and they are getting pediatricians to buy into the fact that Merck doesn't care about Pediatrics anymore and the strict PO contracts we offer are not fair. To GSK's credit, they are getting pediatricians to think our contracts aren't flexible enough, Merck should allow them to cherry pick vaccines instead of all or nothing tactics with rota and HPV and we don't spend any time with them anymore.

Even with spending all our time in adult, Merck is getting ready to hire more contract reps and using the soon to be disbanded Pharmacy Vaccine reps to both call on low prescribing PC docs. Obviously, spending most of our time in PC hasn't worked so management is doubling down on an already bad idea. Zostavax hasn't reached a billion dollar annual sales status in the 10 years it's been out and P23 is a 30 year old vaccine with crappy reimbursement that no compelling message can improve. The writing is on the wall, unless we get some new Vaccines, better adult reimbursement or HEDIS measures for IDS/Hospital with financial incentives to do adult vaccinations, rep death by a thousand cuts will keep going on every 2 years. I would at least like to enjoy my inevitable release from Merck calling docs who actually want to see me, pediatricians, vs. those who don't, PC. Reach and frequency killed access and helped to contribute

 

O.P. here. I meant to end after the last word of my post, "contribute", with ...the demise off all Pharma. Sending thousands upon thousands of reps in offices constantly begging for more scripts or more Vaccines killed access and sales. Even with access limited Merck still wants reps to take the aggressive approach of "challenging the customer to get more results quicker", which translates into annoy the custosoon quicker to get reps kicked out of the office soon.

I get it that we have to still sell to keep Merck alive but going the route of making a group of customers who are already annoyed with seeing a nonstop conga line of reps come in and tell them they aren't practice medicine the right way isn't the best way to go to keep dollars into Merck. This whole trickle down of micromanaging with the thousands of questions to ask customers and these thousand point action plans that management want from reps that detail down to how you even step up to the desk of the reception area to talk to the receptionist have turned this job into a corporate obstacle course that is made up of reps in Golden hand cuffs, because the pay is still good, go through a gauntlet of abuse by micromanagement followed by the game of musical chairs every two years of downsizing. All of this happened because of poor decisions by executive management who still haven't been held accountable for destroying access to customers with an oversaturation of share of voice. Tragic.

 

Great news. We have instituted a stealth under the table kickback to hospital vaccine committee members. ALL patients will leave only after receiving Pneumovax 23 and Zostovav. Our numbers are going to explode. We will need to hire more reps and need to fourth world some added vaccine manufacturing sites. All is coming up roses...

 

Just heard. Merck is up sizing. Refer a friend and get a prize. If your referral becomes a field rep you get a toaster, a vaccine rep you get a blender,a hospital rep you get a 48 roll of toilet paper, an instructor at Merck central you get a Halloween costume,a regional director you get a photo of our CEO and the grand price to a divisional rep a framed signed poster of our CEO. If you get someone hired as a competent minority in any role you win a car with a personal Unicorn driver for we all know this would be just fantasy.

 

Based on your message above it sounds like you are sick of pharma sales, your manager or both.

You complain about detailing but if you don't want to do that then what is the point of paying you to be in any office? To talk about the weather, kids, latest TV shows?

If you get 8-12 discussions a year with a customer and you only talk about superficial stuff during 1-2 of those discussions, do you really think you are making a difference? You might feel good about yourself becuase you avoided any discussion that might have been perceived as being salesy but you aren't doing yourself any favors in terms of helping to hit your goals for the year.

The best reps are able to be personable and talk product on every call. These two things don't need to be mutually exclusive. You'd be amazed by what you can accomplish by talking product on every call. Honestly dude. I'm not saying that to be rude, I'm being sincere here. I felt the same way myself and realized I needed to change my approach and attitude and I am much happier and much more successful than I was before.

I get that the job can be mondane but it still provides a good salary with a decent quality of life. If your manager is awful at least you only have to see them once a month. You have 20 other workdays to make the most of being on your own and you can make an impact based on what you choose to do or not do. Why not make the most of it?

And if not, you always have the option of going to another industry. You always have a choice, always. It never hurts to see what else is out there, even if you don't leave. Don't let the golden handcuffs affect your entire life. Choose to make the most of your current situation or choose to see what else is out there, in the end it is your choice.

 

The problem at Merck is that everybody is afraid to lose their job with all the layoffs and lack of new products going on. Managers down to reps are trying to outdue each other on how much more busywork or nonsense they can spout to look good enough to stay around. I have no problem detailing and talking strictly products and spend little time socializing in the office.

Merck is on a witchunt to get rid of tenured reps with big salaries, big pensions and who dare question management to cut costs. They will use any excuse to do it such as, you aren't detailing enough, you aren't asking enough questions, you are not speaking up enough at meetings, you aren't networking enough with management enough, you aren't identifying projects you can initiate on your own and the list goes on. They only people who thrive in this company are the phoney, back stabbing, double talking sycophants who clap the loudest or who scream the loudest of how great Merck is. Independent thought, individual selling styles and a long tenure at Merck with no aspiration to climb up the ladder are kisses of death in Merck.

 

Sounds just like Kshama Roberts!

 

Announcement on Monday, vaccine business will be sold. Should have positive impact on returns.

 

Nice try. No one believes you. There is a consistent need for vaccines, no product expiry, tough market entry for competitors. Merck would never sell it.

 

Wrong again Nostradoofus! Stick to your day job of washing windows by highway exit ramps with your saliva as the glass cleaner and your dirty jacket sleeve as the cloth.