Paul Hudson

Divisions?

 

Hudson was a good talker, nothing more. Saving housekeeping costs in HQ by getting rid of the trash cans. Brilliant.

 

He is on the short list. No pun intended. There are only a handful of these old Zeneca holdovers left. Over 50, six figure income and defined pension eligible, no longer considered a candidate for advancement, ......... Turn out the lights, the parties over. Announcements of early retirement coming soon.

 

I can only pray, it makes me sick to my stomach to think of him

 

To be honest, I am happy to see Paul leave. He allowed so much disfunction to continue within USLT right under his nose. They would all say one thing in front of him and then stab each other in the back when they walked out of the room. The are never aligned and are all out for themselves. Until that mentality changes at the senior leadership level this organization is destined to fail. Paul is a nice guy, but he was always afraid to have the difficult conversations as he never wanted to "be the bad guy." It was ironic that we had a work shop on difficult conversations, yet Paul missed the class.

He has hung on to people on USLT that have shown no value for years. Tom V, the hold over from the previous leadership has done nothing but spend money on consultants while delivering nothing to drive the bottom line. Paul has hired his "ole friends" and put them in roles outside their bandwidth, and I am anxiously watching as they will soon be uncovered for the frauds that they are. Paul has put no significant pressure on the managed markets team to deliver access, despite some significant formulary loses, which were surprises, over the last two years. That team has ballooned in size, yet hasn't delivered on the promise and remains relatively untouched through "Focus to Win."

I wish Paul well, but I am optimistic that we will see a leader who will shake things up in the US and lead us through the toughest stretch of our corporate existence.

Sincerely,
"Desperately awaiting a leader"

 

Very true and spot on. With Pascal coming over to assess things, I'm sure some are quaking in their dad jeans!

 

.

I agree with most. But let's be clear the formulary losses were due to brand teams saying "no" to the rebates needed. A group of 4-5 people giving thumbs up or down. Then it is up to the RAD or NAD to deliver the news.

 

Paul Hudson failed on everything he was asked to do. He was supposed to turn around a Brilinta franchise that should be a billion dollar brand by now. He was supposed to consolidate and align a diabetes portfolio that was good, not great. Instead, he a his boy Spittle got pushed around by the AZ establishment, and ruined the only short term promising growth.

Everyone in brilinta leadership should be tossed for thinking that just because they survived the doj and beat effient, they know what they are doing.

Whoever decided to ignore the preferred status for diabetes on ESI and backed the 0$ Co pays for farxiga should be shown the door. I don't envy the new guys that have to dea with pascal now that Hudson left them holding a shitsandwich

 

This is exactly correct. RADs and NADs don't sell shit. If the marketing team isn't willing to give enough stuff away then the contract is not accepted. All the RAD and NAD does is relay the hostage demands and then either delivers the payment or the bad news. What a fucking joke and we pay these clowns six figure incomes for this. No wonder this is where they send all of the failed leaders in this organization to waste out their remaining years until retirement. Not now though because AZ can't afford the dead wood any longer and will be cutting many of these dust mops loose.

 

Glass houses? Dropping off samples (if accepted) and seeing no one. Oh yeah, that's value.

 

The point is that none of us sells anything so why pay the RADs and NADs high six figures to cut ribbons and kiss babies? They don't negotiate shit any longer. The few remaining plans simply make demands and these bozos deliver them and return with the company offer. It is either accepted or it isn't. Case closed. This could be handled by certified mail.

 

But he spent that and more on that bullshit Digital group. Blew more money on that useless team than can be accounted for.

There's definitely more to his leaving than getting some so called great opportunity. Pascal is coming now to personally put the last nail in the US coffin. He HATES the US headquarters (and the US for that matter). But haven't they enjoyed the billions made in the US while they whittled away American jobs?

 

Times are tough right now, real people getting impacted. Easy to create a narrative from far away. Truth is, contracting has changed a lot in 3 years. NADs still have impact to the contract, as do contracting directors. Marketing/Brand is not in control, as you say. There IS a group who give a 'thumbs-up' or 'thumbs-down', but that is much further down the line and those people have VP in their title.

 

All of the contracting could be handled by e-mail, fax, or phone directly without paying these clowns to act as messengers. Times have changed and AZ needs to cut costs so this is a logical place to start. Hell, most NADS and RADs don't even leave the house so why not just contact the plans directly from HQ and cut out this overhead?

 

Believe it or not, valuable relationships and indight would be lost without some of these folks, making 'successful' contracting nearly impossible. Careful what you wish for...

 

Hudson was my hero. He was the only guy that I know that could get up on stage at a National Kickoff meeting (in front of of over 600 AZ employees) and use the F word and get away with it! I wish him a lot of luck in his new position at Novartis!

 

Bullshit. Have you met any of the RADs and NADs? Every one of them has failed in a previous role and were then shipped off to this chamber of clueless twits. If you think their relationships are so important, then why does the difference of a few pennies cause us to lose preference to inferior drugs in our class? These plans don't give a shit about relationships, it is strictly dollars and cents. When one of these fat old overpaid losers is let go nobody including the customers cares. I will believe them when one, just one plan says they won't use our drugs unless Carl Crashcup remains as their rep. We could cut all but 4 or 5 of these people tomorrow and never miss a beat and they know it.

 

A Brit with a filthy mouth. They come a dime a dozen.

 

Why is AZ the only company that doesn't seem to understand this? The business has changed and we no longer need an army of managed care reps bringing donuts and catering to customers that only care about price.