Adam Schechter's Best Marketing Program

This program received the Best Merck Marketing Award and the Best Return on Investment recognition. Not so according to the Department of Justice.

The program was designed and implemented by then product manager Adam Schechter, our current leader.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpfqOOPbj4w


Subsequently, a similar switch campaign was copied for Zocor called SAVE. The SAVE program also went on to receive Best Merck Marketing Award and Best ROI.

 

It worked to increase market share for Pepcid and Zocor and Merck legal approved it. So it was the responsibility of the legal content experts to make sure this complied with federal and state laws.

 

This is just the beginning. Marketing always thinks they are so clever and legal does whatever it can to stay out of their way. Meanwhile, on the outside - aka the real world - the real lawyers are just waiting to whip us with common sense and extract their fines and whistle blower cuts.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/drugs/story/2012-03-07/drug-coupons-lawsuit/53400686/1

TRENTON, N.J. – Eight major drugmakers are being sued by a consumer coalition claiming the companies' popular coupon programs, which cover much of the patient co-payment for hundreds of brand-name prescription medicines, are illegal.

Community Catalyst alleges the increasingly common couponing programs appear to save patients money but increase overall health care costs significantly and violate federal bribery laws because they're meant to conceal information about the payments from health insurance plans.

The coupons will eventually drive up consumers' health premiums and can cause patients to reach benefit caps quicker, according to Community Catalyst's Prescription Access Litigation project, which has sued drugmakers over their pricing and promotion strategies.

Insurance plans and other prescription benefit managers for years have used tiered co-payments to steer patients to generics and lower-cost "preferred" brand-name drugs. They are now expected to fight back with new strategies to discourage coupon use.

Such coupons generally reduce patient co-payments for brand-name drugs, such as cholesterol fighter Lipitor and heartburn treatment Nexium, to the co-pay for a generic drug. That's typically around $10, well below the average $25 to $75 co-payment for preferred and non-preferred brand-name drugs, respectively. Some coupons instead offer a set amount such as $25 or $50 off the co-payment.

Either way, employers and other prescription plan sponsors often end up paying much more when coupons are used, because they cover the bulk of the prescription's cost and the patient is getting a much-pricier drug.

The coupons encourage patients to buy the brand-name drug rather than a generic version, which can cost 20 percent to 80 percent less than the brand-name. Such coupons have increasingly been used by drugmakers in recent years as their top blockbusters lose patent protection and the companies face the prospect of losing billions in annual revenue almost overnight.

On Wednesday, Community Catalyst was filing identical lawsuits naming different defendants in federal courts in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Newark, N.J. The companies sued are Abbott Laboratories, Amgen Inc., AstraZeneca PLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Merck & Co. Inc., Novartis AG and Pfizer Inc.

The companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Boston-based Community Catalyst is a coalition of national, state and local groups. Its nearly 40 funders include major foundations focused on health issues, health providers and two Massachusetts Blue Cross Blue Shield plans.

The plaintiffs are four different union health insurance plans, which say they are struggling to cover drug costs that keep rising.

"By combining direct-to-consumer marketing and supermarket 'coupon clipping,' pharmaceutical companies are steering consumers to higher-priced drugs in the pursuit of greater profits," Edward Mullins, president of one of the plaintiffs, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, said in a statement.

A November report by the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association estimates that co-pay coupons, if left unchecked, will increase prescription drug costs for businesses, unions and other plan sponsors by a total of $32 billion over the next decade. The association represents prescription benefit managers hired by health plans and employers to process prescription claims and hold down prescription costs.

The coupons have become nearly ubiquitous, with a December report by stock research firm Cleveland Research Company noting that since it began tracking the programs in July 2009, the number of programs jumped from 86 to 362. Coupons are available for drugs from Bristol-Myers-Squibb's psychiatric drug Abilify to Johnson & Johnson's prostate cancer pill Zytiga.
Besides mailings to patients, the programs are touted in television, radio and print ads, such as one for a $4 co-payment card available to many patients getting blockbuster cholesterol drug Lipitor, which just got generic competition on Nov. 30. Its maker, Pfizer, has said that for insurers agreeing to favor its brand-name Lipitor over generics, it is making up the difference between what they previously paid for Lipitor and what they would pay for a generic, called atorvastatin.

The lawsuits seek a court ruling that co-payment subsidies are illegal and an order that the defendants stop offering the subsidies. The suits also seek unspecified damages for the plaintiffs and triple damages as allowed under federal antitrust law.

Community Catalyst noted that drug co-payment coupons are banned by federal health plans such as Medicare and are also banned in Massachusetts under an anti-kickback law.

 

Merck Engage, another marketing program true intent is to improve ROI. Although disguised as a medication adherence program.

http://www.merckengage.com


Winner of the Best Marketing Award!

 

The drug adherence program 'Merck Engage' is another program to increase ROI.

http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2012/03/lawsuits_allege_drugmakers_are.html

Marketing campaign around coupons, rebates, and patient follow up on only Merck drugs with a clear intent to improve retention and ROI with physicians will again flag DOJ attention.

 

Adam and New Merck leadership have evolved into a system of.....deceit, greed, sloth, hubris, self righteousness, control, sequestering information, bullying the weak....

 

What say we focus on researching and discovering the best products that improve patients' lives. Let the market reward us and the better our products are for the patient, the better our profits will be. Oh, wait. That was old Merck. That model doesn't work now. So we focus on being the best marketeer of products that may not be best for the patient but that will deliver the profits we need to support our executives' needed compensation. Yes, that model works well now.

 

Merck research is dead. The best and brightest are long gone. But when it comes to marketing, Merck is amongst the best.

 

You forgot immoral and unethical and if the rumors coming out of UG are true flat out sick and dare I say criminal.

 

Check out what kind of options this guy is getting. Truly disgusting!




http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/mrk/insiders?pid=4137290

 

More examples of deceptive practices, Merck Medicus (professional awareness) and Merck Source (consumer awareness) both value add programs (nonbranded?) for marketing to sell more Merck products and expand disease awareness. Merck purchases content from third parties to disguise its true intent. Monies and resources provided by none other than the marketing teams and support team to make sure they are messages are aligned. User analytic is used by marketing to justify support.

 

In balance for continuity of the record, here is Adam's impressive career contributions beginning with the product manager position:

1. Product Manager Pepcid Nominal hospital discharge price program as a product manager later copied for Zocor....650 Mil $ fine from Feds and States.
2. Strategic Senior Management roles include:
-VP Joint Venture Zetia and Vytorin strategy for Enhance debacle....reduced Merck share price from 60 to 28 .... a loss of 30 bil of stock holder equity.
-Vioxx VP marketing....shame and almost bankrupt the company....$1.2 Bil DOJ fine and criminal conviction....estimated $15 bil cost in expenses and loss of future revenue.
-President Merck Global Human Health....Point for Merck/Schering merger....total cost of 41 bil plus 5 bil as acquired debt....successful integration of the merger....elimination of 30,000 jobs lost and no major block buster.
-1 Merck management structure....has resulted in major disruptions and total chaos with rank and file.
- Work in progress....combined synergies and cost saving of 4 to 6 Bil in operating efficiencies.

YES, INDEED AND IMPRESSIVE RECORD FOR A BATTLE TRAINED EXECUTIVE WHICH EXPLAINS THE CURRENT STATUS. SORRY NEW MERCK IS FUBR.

 

Yes this explains why there is so much corruption and bad business practices in the company when they select leaders who have such low scruples and demonstrated series of bad judgements.
These examples are beginning to reveal vast level of corruption, with revelations of fraud (of label promotion), cover-ups of fatal side effects (zocor and fosamax), kickbacks paid to doctors and third parties. This sheds light of what is wrong with Merck.

 

I'll second the FUBR and raise it to FUBAR. It is pretty sad when one can hold no confidence, trust, or respect for their employer. Actions tell the story and Merck's have been shameful.

 

Adam Schechter is nothing more than a two-bit politician. I had dinner with that idiot a few years ago and wasn't impressed. Question-dodger and bullshit artist, nothing more.

 

Adam is the best spin doctor I have ever met and worked for. He speaks with calculated authority without having all his facts and expects you to align with him.

 

Adam is more than a SPIN DOCTOR....MUST HAVE A DIRECT LINE TO THE WIZARD!

 

Be afraid be very afraid...............

 

stay tuned, pure hell is going to be unleashed soon

 

Yeah sure it will. What planet do you live on? Learn now my friend nothing will ever change.