Biosimilar expansion

Buy and Bill means you buy something and then call your friend Bill and tell him about it.

 

Awesome contribution.

 

Is anyone NOT going to accept an offer?
Are you all unemployed and happy to take the offer or are you jumping over from a sinking ship?
Or do you honestly think this is a great gig with a long term future? By long term I mean >12 months.

 

What are you hearing in regards to offers? Salary range and bonus target? Car or Car Allowance?

 

Company car for sure - they will run a motor vehicle report on you. No mention of bonus. Salary seems fairly negotiable.

 

Anyone that had interviews in Chicago last know when to expect the offer? I know the goal was beginning of October having everyone hired but as far as after final face to face interviews just didn't know when the actual offers were expected to start, first week of October?

 

Right. 12 mos is a stretch. Pfizer is a shit company. Run, dont walk.

 

One day, soon, every company will be owned by Pfizer.

 

one day soon you'll leave mommys basement and find a job !

 

Hearing both are offered. Car is a Standard mid $20K price base. So allowance may not be very aggressive.

No mention of equity. And 401K is matched but there were contingencies. Approx $30K at plan with some type of cap.

Approx 100 head count in the field. End of October is the goal for making all reps official.

Second hand info. So take with grain of salt.

Base range depending on experience and recent earnings.

GLTA!

 

Argh!
I'm at another big shit pharma company for less than a year and things are going south. Something's gonna give here but I have no idea when. 6 months? 12 months? Who knows but not much longer than that.

So, do I jump out of the frying pan and into the PFE fire?

What say all you???

 

They've already contacted reps from the interview in Chicago.

 

Offers have not gone out yet. Not all anyway. Interviews are not even over yet. West coast being done this week. 150 max salary target bonus could be 40 - 50. Do your homework and compare what you have vs what you will get. Still can't for the life of me how this biosimilar sector is going to have much to do with selling anything. Oh yeah and by the way no offers could be extended until the patent case was official. That was pretty much settled last Friday. Check the news. Now it's up to the company to launch or not. They will not come to market at risk. I wish people who post had some skin in the game or at least respect enough for others to be professional. These are unknown waters so ask the right questions before you jump from the frying pan and into the fire. I repeat Unknown waters.

 

To the best of my knowledge, JnJ filed 6 patent suits and lost 4 quickly. The 5th on the antibody was ruled in favor of PFE in August but they are going to appeal. Then there is the 083 patent suit and that won't be reviewed until Feb 2017. That's on Celltrion's cell culture media. So, it appears that it is still going to be an "at-risk" launch.

 

does anyone feel that this is an exciting opportunity at hand? I have been watching this biosimilar arena get ready to make an entrance to the market and I have to say I have been cautiously optimistic. I want to believe this will be a cool opportunity to be involved in on the ground level. Pricing is going to drive sales and that would be my only concern as a sales rep. If contracting with payers doesn't go well then there is little hope to drive sales. This raises concerns for me on the viability of the sales position and how long this position may last. Thoughts?

 

Yes I am looking forward to the job. Zarxio has made some great headway - the only product now on CVS Caremark and United Health Cares formulary. Big wins with payors.

 

Here are my concerns and I've never sold in this space.

1.) There is an unresolved patent dispute pending. The drug will launch with this dispute which will not be addressed until Feb 2017. If PFE loses, it'll have to pay back JnJ for lost sales and cease selling the drug. What happens to the sales force?

2.) Remicade is an old drug. It's been out there since 1998. It's no longer the "go to" drug to treat inflammatory autoimmune diseases. So, how much new business or new patient starts sales potential is out there?

3.) If it ain't broke, don't fix it. How many docs will switch patients to Inflectra just on cost alone and cost is all this drug has going for it? How many patients will be willing to be switched to Inflectra? This isn't the same as a generic pill. This is an infusion. It seems like there will be resistance on the provider and the patient side to switch.

4.) Cost: We have no control over cost. We have no control over payer access. If it is priced at 30% lower than Remicade, JnJ will probably counter and say I'll meet your 30% and bundle some of our other products with it too. Not sure that's legal but it's a possibility.

5.) So there are a lot of factors outside the sales force's control that will determine the success or failure of Inflectra. All we have control over is pull through.

a.) New Patient Starts? Don't know how much opportunity lies here.
b.) Patient switches? That will be controlled by the payers. It'll be a tough sell to docs and patients to switch. And why would the patient switch? They're not really going to see the savings. Neither will the docs.
c.) Buy and Bill: Don't docs make ASP + 6% on these drugs? So, if Inflectra is priced 30% less than Remicade, the doc will be making ASP x .70 + 6%. That's 30% less than branded infliximab.

Lots of moving pieces.

 

Those are all prudent thoughts. I wonder what guarantee will be available for duration of employment. I guess what I am saying is if we leave to pursue this and it doesn't go as planned where does it leave you. After all most people are not running from a job but pursuing an incredible opportunity.

 

We are tools for PFE. And I mean that in the literal sense. If the tool is no longer needed, you shelve it or get rid of it.

I doubt they'll find us other internal sales jobs. It's a take it or leave it proposition. If it bombs, we'll be out of jobs.

I have not done much research into PFE's Biosimilar pipeline. What is next on the horizon and how far away is PFE's next biosimilar from being approved by the FDA?

That may determine if we get to keep our jobs if Inflectra bombs.

 

at least 7 in the pipeline and many other company's are getting ready to have competing bio similars for the same branded biologic. Competition to the competition. Gonna be a messy price war.