Another letter to Mr. Frazier

[Anonymous]

Dear Mr. Frazier:

The following quote is taken from the Feb 8, 2011, New York Times.

"Merck was one of the drug companies that plunged most heavily into RNAi, paying $1.1 billion in 2006 to acquire Sirna Therapeutics, a pioneer in the field. While Dr. Sachs said Merck is happy with its investment, the company does not yet have an RNAi drug in clinical trials and is using the technique more for basic biological studies."

If you combine this billion with the $0.62 billion Dr. Kim paid for Rosetta, the 0.4 billion for GlycoFi with no products in sight (epo failure), the lack of internal pipeline productivity over the decade of his leadership wasting ~$25 billion (round numbers - let's call it $50 billion and discount by 50%, since it's a tough business), he has directly wasted >$27 billion dollars.

And yet, you continue to support him. Will you, or one of your minions, please answer this direct questions: why do you have confidence in his decision making? Where is the objective evidence that he is competent at running a multi-national pharma research endeavor? Have you highlighted his failures for the Board and for the owners of the company?

 

[Anonymous]

Oh please don't stop at Kim, there is a whole bunch underneath who are totally incompetent and makes a profession out of eliminating the competent ones to safeguard their positions. Sachs and minions are especially experts at this game, and the amount of research money they waste is just mind boggling.

Looking at Merck history isn't it amazing that the R&D folks missed out on biologics for over 30 years? Kim is totally unfit playing the catch up game, he made all the wrong decisions. What would happen to Merck biologics if the arbitration for remicade/simponi goes in favor of J&J?

Should have left the Schering-Plough folks alone in the first place to deal with the TRA debacle. Fred Hassan is running, laughing all the way to the bank.

Dick Clarck and Peter Kim....Oh boy! Send Dick Clark home, Peter should be demoted all the way to research assistant for a newly minted PhD in the lab. No golden parachute for him.

 

[Anonymous]

Um... take a look around. NO DRUG COMPANY in the past 10 years has done squat with finding a new ground breaking drug.
Two years ago none of the major drug companies had a single product approved by the FDA.

It's beyond simplistic to blame it on one person (Kim).

Even though Pfizer's research department has done squat for even longer than Merck, at least its business development and licensing people keep finding small companies to acquire that generate sales. Merck has done a terrible job at finding external science to buy, and that isn't on MRL.

 

[Anonymous]

Affirmative action my friend. Look into Fraziers law background. Have you ever talked to him in person? I have had better more intelligent conversations with the security staff at upper gwenyd!

 

[Anonymous]

Um... take a look around. NO DRUG COMPANY in the past 10 years has done squat with finding a new ground breaking drug.
Two years ago none of the major drug companies had a single product approved by the FDA.

It's beyond simplistic to blame it on one person (Kim).

Even though Pfizer's research department has done squat for even longer than Merck, at least its business development and licensing people keep finding small companies to acquire that generate sales. Merck has done a terrible job at finding external science to buy, and that isn't on MRL.

OMG! What's ground breaking to you, Peter? Another show of incredible arrogance and ignorance.

No it's not Peter alone that should be blamed, but his whole team. They are just pathetic in terms of creativity, well thought out initiatives, and above all respect for diversity of scientific opinions. They just have the wrong model for discovery research when facing the new reality in the drug industry. Just look at the ROIC in R&D over the last 9 years with Peter in charge.

Last word, don't want to talk about Merck R&D, just way too depressing.

 

[Anonymous]

Post #4,

Take your head out of racist ass! Frazier's appointment has nothing to do with affirmative action and his credentials as a lawyer (Harvard Law School) are unquestionable. The question should be whether now is the time for any lawyer to lead this ship and whether he specifically has the credentials to lead the non-law based part of the company. If he turns out to be as bereft of talent as Clark (check out his credentials) and Gilmartin (speaking of needing a lawyer on retainer) direct your ideas to the lame board of directors.

Can anyone inspire Merck to do great things anymore?

 

[Anonymous]

Ohhhh, this is painful. Yes, there are very talented people who are still at Merck. However, they will never have the opportunity to shine. Hopefully, they won't waste any more time here.

 

[Anonymous]

Um... take a look around. NO DRUG COMPANY in the past 10 years has done squat with finding a new ground breaking drug.
Two years ago none of the major drug companies had a single product approved by the FDA.

It's beyond simplistic to blame it on one person (Kim).

Even though Pfizer's research department has done squat for even longer than Merck, at least its business development and licensing people keep finding small companies to acquire that generate sales. Merck has done a terrible job at finding external science to buy, and that isn't on MRL.

MRL controls BD activities. Many of the recent acquisitions have been directly influenced by Peter, eg. Glycofi. They have the dominant say in whether or not something is pursued, and Kender et al are in MRL. So yes, it is on MRL.