Big Pharma: What went wrong?

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Anonymous

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"This fact does not motivate current senior leaders to effect big changes and the ones that try to do so are met with the challenges of changing large scale organizational dynamics that are entrenched and that provide very comfortable lifestyles for those at the top."

I think the above quote from the Forbes article sums up what is wrong and went wrong with big pharma quite accurately. We (Merck) have far too many senior leaders leading very comfortable lifestyles that just can't seem to find it within themselves to effect the very necessary BIG CHANGES needed at big pharma in order to right the ship and return the industry to a justified place of respect and admiration. It is through these bozos that the public has come to despise and even hate the companies that have in the past made great discoveries that have saved lives and improved the quality of life of the masses. Until a
BOD has enough guts to clean out the ranks of these fat and happy senior managers, the decline of this industry will continue.
 






Anonymous said:
"This fact does not motivate current senior leaders to effect big changes and the ones that try to do so are met with the challenges of changing large scale organizational dynamics that are entrenched and that provide very comfortable lifestyles for those at the top."

I think the above quote from the Forbes article sums up what is wrong and went wrong with big pharma quite accurately. We (Merck) have far too many senior leaders leading very comfortable lifestyles that just can't seem to find it within themselves to effect the very necessary BIG CHANGES needed at big pharma in order to right the ship and return the industry to a justified place of respect and admiration. It is through these bozos that the public has come to despise and even hate the companies that have in the past made great discoveries that have saved lives and improved the quality of life of the masses. Until a
BOD has enough guts to clean out the ranks of these fat and happy senior managers, the decline of this industry will continue.
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it will never happen...greed is institutionalized among Merck execs...and the middle managers will always have there 200k gigs as long as they are willing to tow the company line and terrorize their reps.
 






BOD are just the same ilk re-shuffled from somewhere else. Almost none of them have built anything up from nothing. They have had the same blessed golden-boy career trajectory as the management they supposedly oversee. Expecting them to do anything is a pipedream. Radically different means radically different and that might ought to start with serious salary caps so our leadership seems to have at least one thing in common with us. This industry is regarded as despicable by the public and nobody trusts us one bit. That wasn't the case 20 years ago. Start with honesty, values, and humility and follow up by getting some leadership that can personify these.
 






Anonymous said:
BOD are just the same ilk re-shuffled from somewhere else. Almost none of them have built anything up from nothing. They have had the same blessed golden-boy career trajectory as the management they supposedly oversee. Expecting them to do anything is a pipedream. Radically different means radically different and that might ought to start with serious salary caps so our leadership seems to have at least one thing in common with us. This industry is regarded as despicable by the public and nobody trusts us one bit. That wasn't the case 20 years ago. Start with honesty, values, and humility and follow up by getting some leadership that can personify these.
Click to expand...

The first thing that needs to happen is that 80% of all sales people and managers need to be fired, and creditability needs to be restored to the profession by hiring only people with science undergrads or better.
 






Anonymous said:
"This fact does not motivate current senior leaders to effect big changes and the ones that try to do so are met with the challenges of changing large scale organizational dynamics that are entrenched and that provide very comfortable lifestyles for those at the top."

I think the above quote from the Forbes article sums up what is wrong and went wrong with big pharma quite accurately. We (Merck) have far too many senior leaders leading very comfortable lifestyles that just can't seem to find it within themselves to effect the very necessary BIG CHANGES needed at big pharma in order to right the ship and return the industry to a justified place of respect and admiration. It is through these bozos that the public has come to despise and even hate the companies that have in the past made great discoveries that have saved lives and improved the quality of life of the masses. Until a
BOD has enough guts to clean out the ranks of these fat and happy senior managers, the decline of this industry will continue.
Click to expand...

Change will come once Merck hits rock bottom. The issue is that the wrong managers have been in place for a long time. They don't have the internal drive to make things better and never had it. Merck was making money hand over fist and no one had the insight or vision for the future. R&D started this epic failure and it trickled down from there. Let's face it, nothing in the pipeline equates to lower sales. Smaller companies have better pipelines with a much smaller budgets. How can that happen? The worse thing that Merck ever did was to buy SP. They did not need the employees and purchased intellectual property. The issue with that was SP did not have a pipeline either. With so much coming of patent, economy contracting again, and no pipeline Merck will go down to 40-50k people in 2 years. Everything in Jersey will be gone except Whitehouse Station (reduced). They will keep a small satellite location and that's about it. Why stay in Jersey to make generic drugs? It is way to expensive to stay when money get tight. They will go to other geo's outside the US. I am sure Tennessee will get hit also. Thing are getting worse out there not only in Pharma, but in all sectors of the economy. I wish I had an answer to it but I am out of ideas. For now just work hard and survive. I don't know too many people who are thriving right now.
 






I think your right on. And, why should this all be a mystery?

1. We are being differentiated by our managers-some of who dont even overlap with us-in a secret meeting that we dont have access to. What is being said in there about us?
2. Managers have been told to try to keep morale up until the cuts start
3. King Dick Kenny says that cuts are coming
4. Fish-licker Jackie Neilson says that no cuts are coming
5. Jack ass Longstreet says no cuts "this year"
6. We hear rumors of cuts and nobody even tries to quell our concerns
7. Obama-nation care kicks in by 2014 which will definitely impact our numbers
8. When a rep is kicked out or leave, he or she is replaced by a contract rep
9. Our earnings are all based on profits that are being made by cutting expenses, not increasing market share of our in-line products
10. Manager field visits are a real pain in the ass-I waste a week getting ready for her so that I have people to see when she is with me
11. Administrative burden is pretty high
12. Noboy is listening
13. Everything is being run by legal department
14. If we do something wrong-even by mistake, our jobs are threatened
15. We are all closer than we could ever imaging with a PIP
16. Doctors now get their information on new drug launches by someone other than a pharma rep by almost 70%
17. Access being limited daily
18. RFM money drying up
19. The handcuffs the company puts on us-it seems they dont want us to do what is necessary to succeed.
20. No leadership at the top, in the middle, or at the bottom

Other than that, things are going just great. Yes
 






Anonymous said:
I think your right on. And, why should this all be a mystery?

1. We are being differentiated by our managers-some of who dont even overlap with us-in a secret meeting that we dont have access to. What is being said in there about us?
2. Managers have been told to try to keep morale up until the cuts start
3. King Dick Kenny says that cuts are coming
4. Fish-licker Jackie Neilson says that no cuts are coming
5. Jack ass Longstreet says no cuts "this year"
6. We hear rumors of cuts and nobody even tries to quell our concerns
7. Obama-nation care kicks in by 2014 which will definitely impact our numbers
8. When a rep is kicked out or leave, he or she is replaced by a contract rep
9. Our earnings are all based on profits that are being made by cutting expenses, not increasing market share of our in-line products
10. Manager field visits are a real pain in the ass-I waste a week getting ready for her so that I have people to see when she is with me
11. Administrative burden is pretty high
12. Noboy is listening
13. Everything is being run by legal department
14. If we do something wrong-even by mistake, our jobs are threatened
15. We are all closer than we could ever imaging with a PIP
16. Doctors now get their information on new drug launches by someone other than a pharma rep by almost 70%
17. Access being limited daily
18. RFM money drying up
19. The handcuffs the company puts on us-it seems they dont want us to do what is necessary to succeed.
20. No leadership at the top, in the middle, or at the bottom

Other than that, things are going just great. Yes
Click to expand...

I used to dream of working in a circus when I was a little kid. Usually I was walking a tight rope. Never did I dream my dreams would come true of a fashion at Merck. Our job is a circus and one wrong move could hurt us severely.
 






easy to sum up "what went wrong":

"PATENT CLIFF".....DRIED-UP PIPELINE.....GENERICS....LESS AND LESS ACCESS IN OFFICES....CHEAPER CONRACT REPS....SALES MANAGEMENT AND REPS DESPERATELY TRYING TO REMAIN "RELEVANT"....FACADE CRUMBLING AS REVENUE DECREASES IN A NO-WIN ENVIRONMENT.....NO ALTERNATIVE BUT TO DOWNSIZE....AND DOWNSIZE.....AND DOWNSIZE.....THE ONLY ONES WHO ARE NOT AFFECTED BY ALL OF THIS ARE THE USELESS EXECUTIVES---who continue to earn millions but bring no value----SUCH A LACK OF LEADERSHIP, ESPECIALLY IN R&D.

BEST TO ACCEPT AND LOOK FORWARD TO MOVING ON.
 
























Anonymous said:
Merck made 1 billion in the 1st quarter, that's what's wrong.
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Thank God for that. Now it's just a matter of a small time before morale lines up with our billion-dollar greatness. This company today has difficulty achieving things that were equivalent to a walk in the park 15 years ago. And that list of failures ought to start with being honest.
 






Anonymous said:
Thank God for that. Now it's just a matter of a small time before morale lines up with our billion-dollar greatness. This company today has difficulty achieving things that were equivalent to a walk in the park 15 years ago. And that list of failures ought to start with being honest.
Click to expand...

Not enough to keep us employed?
 
























Anonymous said:
Top of list is incompetent managers. The select who take pride in destroying highly performing reps. Shocking and hard to believe.
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Incompetent managers are at other drug companies also. There is something inherent wrong in this industry in the job definition of a pharma manager. Managers are supposed to be more administrative and some hand-on management. This industry has managers by design to be some administrative and all hand-on and practically micromanagement of the reps.

This is also a business. Unfortunately it means stockholders have to be appeased or else they will move their money elsewhere. The reps and others became a casualty of keeping the numbers look good to Wall Street. I am a tenured rep with some Merck stocks. On one hand I am happy to see the profit being reported. On the other hand I am fully aware of the bloodletting done on the reps to meet that goal.
 






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