2016 Merck Vaccine Division

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anonymous said:
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.
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anonymous said:
We have not made much of a dent in adult vaccine sales in 30 years... Look at pneu23 rates...we are messed up with reach and freq. from the tablet world....D.I.D.
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We are in the state of decline due to innept and clueless want to be sales losers. Don't worry however the group is getting a new VD vaccine which will sell its self especially in the Bernie crowd!
 






anonymous said:
We are in the state of decline due to innept and clueless want to be sales losers. Don't worry however the group is getting a new VD vaccine which will sell its self especially in the Bernie crowd!
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It starts with the leadership of the division and it sucks right now. Jauque, Collen, Jan and the dimwitted DCO's? Garbage! Zostavax and Pneumovax 23 aren't going to save Merck. Zostavax has been out for 10 years now it is nowhere close to being a billion dollar vaccine because insurance coverage sucks, the overall efficacy isn't that great (51%) and PC clinics don't consider it a priority, considering they are treating people with more serious diseases.

Pneumovax 23? Really? A 30 year old vaccine is the answer? Come on. We may have more serotypes than P13 but they have better reimbursement, hands down. No marketing message is going to combat cost issues. Finally, hospitals don't care about Pneumococcal disease anymore because they aren't incentivized by HEDIS measures to use it anymore and they were the biggest users of it until last year.

Merck has given up on Pediatrics which is where several of our Vaccines are making billions like both Gardasils, RotaTeq and the MMR II, VARIVAX, PROQUAD franchises. Ten years we have focused on the pie in sky adult Vaccine potential and we have gotten very little return on investment. Now we are grasping at straws with the former pharmacy vaccine reps and contract reps calling on tiny PC offices that don't use Zostavax while the existing sales reps try to get what few PC offices who use Zostavax to use 15% more this year. What a joke!
 
























anonymous said:
We have not made much of a dent in adult vaccine sales in 30 years... Look at pneu23 rates...we are messed up with reach and freq. from the tablet world....D.I.D.
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When will this idiot Vaccine leadership realize Zostavax is a dud and Pneumovax 23 is on the decline. Disbanding the pharmacy vaccine group, deploying that group to call on non Zostavax users and hiring a contract sales force to also call on non Zostavax users has yielded no growth. No more incentives for hospitals to have Pneumococcal vaccination protocols and better reimbursement for P13 has also killed P23. Newsflash, there is no untapped potential in the adult Vaccine market!!!!!! The pediatric Vaccine market is saving the division as well as the company by bringing in several billions of dollars yet leadership leaves that market wide open for GSK to explore.
 






anonymous said:
When will this idiot Vaccine leadership realize Zostavax is a dud and Pneumovax 23 is on the decline. Disbanding the pharmacy vaccine group, deploying that group to call on non Zostavax users and hiring a contract sales force to also call on non Zostavax users has yielded no growth. No more incentives for hospitals to have Pneumococcal vaccination protocols and better reimbursement for P13 has also killed P23. Newsflash, there is no untapped potential in the adult Vaccine market!!!!!! The pediatric Vaccine market is saving the division as well as the company by bringing in several billions of dollars yet leadership leaves that market wide open for GSK to explore.
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The division is another useless and not needed resource. If the medical establishment doesn't recognize the worth of immunization they never will. Collapse the group and save investors money!
 






I am in CV and would gladly take a job on the vaccine team. Even though all vaccines are old, have tough competition on the horizon, nothing great in the pipeline, an overly stressful environment with zero chance of hitting quota, and metrics lovers at the helm I would consider taking my package and leaving for a better gig. Zontivity sucks but vaccines is worse. They want to play like they are superior yet it is considered a lateral move. I need to be paid for my work thank you.
 






anonymous said:
It starts with the leadership of the division and it sucks right now. Jauque, Collen, Jan and the dimwitted DCO's? Garbage! Zostavax and Pneumovax 23 aren't going to save Merck. Zostavax has been out for 10 years now it is nowhere close to being a billion dollar vaccine because insurance coverage sucks, the overall efficacy isn't that great (51%) and PC clinics don't consider it a priority, considering they are treating people with more serious diseases.

Pneumovax 23? Really? A 30 year old vaccine is the answer? Come on. We may have more serotypes than P13 but they have better reimbursement, hands down. No marketing message is going to combat cost issues. Finally, hospitals don't care about Pneumococcal disease anymore because they aren't incentivized by HEDIS measures to use it anymore and they were the biggest users of it until last year.

Merck has given up on Pediatrics which is where several of our Vaccines are making billions like both Gardasils, RotaTeq and the MMR II, VARIVAX, PROQUAD franchises. Ten years we have focused on the pie in sky adult Vaccine potential and we have gotten very little return on investment. Now we are grasping at straws with the former pharmacy vaccine reps and contract reps calling on tiny PC offices that don't use Zostavax while the existing sales reps try to get what few PC offices who use Zostavax to use 15% more this year. What a joke!
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Well if you leave dont go looking for a strategy job any time soon.

The pediatric vaccines sell themselves. No one needs us out there fighting for marketshare when the vaccines you listed have 80% or greater marketshare even without us talking about them and theres not a lot of growth left in any of those markets except HPV.

You clearly dont even understand the strategy for the pneumo market based on your comment about P23.

And you are complaining that you are getting paid to sell two vaccines that dont sell themselves. Imagine that. We actually have to sell vaccines now and not just remind docs about new school recommendations.

At the end of this year it will be clear who are the real salesmen and who are the ones who have just gotten by delivering school and daycare requirement messages about ped vaccines. Imagine if they decide to trim the bottom 20% after this year. Where will you be?
 






anonymous said:
Well if you leave dont go looking for a strategy job any time soon.

The pediatric vaccines sell themselves. No one needs us out there fighting for marketshare when the vaccines you listed have 80% or greater marketshare even without us talking about them and theres not a lot of growth left in any of those markets except HPV.

You clearly dont even understand the strategy for the pneumo market based on your comment about P23.

And you are complaining that you are getting paid to sell two vaccines that dont sell themselves. Imagine that. We actually have to sell vaccines now and not just remind docs about new school recommendations.

At the end of this year it will be clear who are the real salesmen and who are the ones who have just gotten by delivering school and daycare requirement messages about ped vaccines. Imagine if they decide to trim the bottom 20% after this year. Where will you be?
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What part of Zostavax has been promoted for 10 years and it still hasn't made any traction don't you understand? Every other product in our portfolio eventually became successful after a couple of years, including Adult hep A and Adult hep B, with the exception of Zostavax. What makes Zostavax unique? It has the worse efficacy profile in the portfolio and reimbursement isn't great either.

Pneumovax 23? That vaccine sold it self for 30 years until P13 got the adult indication and Merck was slow to react. How is a Pneumo Vaccine with 13 valents doing better than one that has been around over 30 years with 23 valents? Reimbursement! Pfizer did its homework and new reimbursement would be key. Merck leadership did a horrible job with reimbursement (Zostavax and P23) and also fumbled on the supply issue for Zostavax when it first came out. Also, why didn't Merck fight like hell to get Zosta on the funded Medicare Part B program rather than the unfunded Medicare part D? You can't blame the field for those blunders. Leadership botched both adult Vaccine opportunities and no marketing messages or nag based selling model will fix it. Period.

Pulling the pharmacy vaccine division to have them call on Zosta non-users along with a contract salesforce is an act of desperation by Jan Nissan to save her job. If we don't get the hexavalent vaccine or our version of Prevnar approved for Pediatrics approved, layoffs will come soon. So once again, pediatric Vaccines may save us.
 






anonymous said:
What part of Zostavax has been promoted for 10 years and it still hasn't made any traction don't you understand? Every other product in our portfolio eventually became successful after a couple of years, including Adult hep A and Adult hep B, with the exception of Zostavax. What makes Zostavax unique? It has the worse efficacy profile in the portfolio and reimbursement isn't great either.

Pneumovax 23? That vaccine sold it self for 30 years until P13 got the adult indication and Merck was slow to react. How is a Pneumo Vaccine with 13 valents doing better than one that has been around over 30 years with 23 valents? Reimbursement! Pfizer did its homework and new reimbursement would be key. Merck leadership did a horrible job with reimbursement (Zostavax and P23) and also fumbled on the supply issue for Zostavax when it first came out. Also, why didn't Merck fight like hell to get Zosta on the funded Medicare Part B program rather than the unfunded Medicare part D? You can't blame the field for those blunders. Leadership botched both adult Vaccine opportunities and no marketing messages or nag based selling model will fix it. Period.

Pulling the pharmacy vaccine division to have them call on Zosta non-users along with a contract salesforce is an act of desperation by Jan Nissan to save her job. If we don't get the hexavalent vaccine or our version of Prevnar approved for Pediatrics approved, layoffs will come soon. So once again, pediatric Vaccines may save us.
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I bet Jan N. gets her golden parachute bailout by the end of 3rd quarter. Shuffling around the pharmacy vaccine salesforce and then adding a contract salesforce has yielded 0 positive results under leadership. Time to go!!! Next!!!
 






anonymous said:
I bet Jan N. gets her golden parachute bailout by the end of 3rd quarter. Shuffling around the pharmacy vaccine salesforce and then adding a contract salesforce has yielded 0 positive results under leadership. Time to go!!! Next!!!
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Jan Nissan is clueless. Reach and frequency is what led to health systems and clinics to clothes their doors to reps. So what is her latest brilliant idea? More emphasis on reach and frequency. Just fake the calls and don't ruin what limited access you have left. Jan needs to go along with her prehistoric Pharma tactics that don't work!
 




































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