Concerned Newbie

Quote

Anonymous

Guest
So I'm somewhat new at Dendreon and I have some concerns I dare not mention in the space of my peers. I'm interested to know what others think.

1) Is it just me or has training left me and others unprepared for the complex nature of this job?

2) Why is everyone here from the same company? At first I thought it had more to do with transferable skills but now it looks more like friends hiring friend without regard to skill level or competence.

3) Are we really growing? Seems like to me most people in the sales force are delivering way under expectation. Yes, there are those that are doing extremely well but there doesnt seem to be any middle ground performers. Either you are doing extremely well or you are sucking pretty much. IMO it looks like only a few are driving company results. If you take out the extreme performers, are we growing?

4) Why does our leadership insist that we respond to "I dont believe the data" with the data that customers dont believe? Just seems like a bad idea to me.

5) Does anyone think our Abms are just another layer of over paid friends of the people referenced in bullet 2? I'm not really sure what they really do besides push the contract (as if that takes alot of skill).

Just looking for some other perspectives. Please spare me any kool aid talk.
 












The employees of Dendreon were hired from dozens of different biotech and pharma companies. The sales training I have received has been excellent. I enjoy our team approach to closing sales and achieving increased penetration with physician practices. Helping cancer patients makes me feel good and feel that I am contributing to the world in a meaningful way. Sales are growing well and I am well compensated for my efforts. The nature of your questions clearly indicate you are a not currently an employee. I came to dendreon 3 years ago and it has been the best decision I ever made.
 






Anonymous said:
So I'm somewhat new at Dendreon and I have some concerns I dare not mention in the space of my peers. I'm interested to know what others think.

1) Is it just me or has training left me and others unprepared for the complex nature of this job?

2) Why is everyone here from the same company? At first I thought it had more to do with transferable skills but now it looks more like friends hiring friend without regard to skill level or competence.

3) Are we really growing? Seems like to me most people in the sales force are delivering way under expectation. Yes, there are those that are doing extremely well but there doesnt seem to be any middle ground performers. Either you are doing extremely well or you are sucking pretty much. IMO it looks like only a few are driving company results. If you take out the extreme performers, are we growing?

4) Why does our leadership insist that we respond to "I dont believe the data" with the data that customers dont believe? Just seems like a bad idea to me.

5) Does anyone think our Abms are just another layer of over paid friends of the people referenced in bullet 2? I'm not really sure what they really do besides push the contract (as if that takes alot of skill).

Just looking for some other perspectives. Please spare me any kool aid talk.
Click to expand...

Dear Concerned Newbie,

It looks as if you are one of the "good" hires we have had! The majority of people now being hired are either friends of mgmt or from 3rd rate companies (not that they are bad people but we need seasoned Onc reps) with 0 experience in Oncology/Urology which will be fatal for this organization.

I can answer your questions:

1) Training was a joke for me years ago as well.....they don't really have a grasp as to what our position is/does (not big pharma) and you have to teach yourself 100% as well as reach out to everyone to learn on the fly. Thats the only way I've survived.

2) This is a culture of the new mgmt team. It didn't use to be this way....this is all senior leadership knows. If you were kicked out of Amgen you're welcomed here with open arms. And we all know all they have done is kissed ass and sold contracts in supportive care. This is not transferrable here but unfortunately they don't care.

3) We are not growing. I just got my Q4 scorecard and with 0 payout I'm still in the top 50% of the field force of 103. Sad. If you were lucky enough to get a territory that has been vacated with key accounts you are set......big institutions/key LUGPAs etc. These people know they are not making a difference and couldn't tell you how to fill out a BV if their life depended on it but they still are regarded as the cream of the crop---JOKE.

4) They have 0 experience in this field so we just push the same old down the doc's throats. If you don't succeed.....they'll just PIP you and hire an AMGN buddy. And they will fail too.

5) The ABMs and UroKams are both useless bureaucratic positions designed by top mgmt to give the "in crowd" more money and a better title. They provide 0 value....none of them could get an appt on their own if they tried. They are the ass kissers/politickers of DNDN. I have 2 friends that are in this group and they will admit this to you as well. They are seriously stressed that they will finally be held accountable once BI/Aveo/Algeta/Genomic Health/Genenetech hire 30% of the field force in Q1. They are screwed.

No kool-aid here.....just observations from a seasoned vet of DNDN. Good luck.
 






Anonymous said:
The employees of Dendreon were hired from dozens of different biotech and pharma companies. The sales training I have received has been excellent. I enjoy our team approach to closing sales and achieving increased penetration with physician practices. Helping cancer patients makes me feel good and feel that I am contributing to the world in a meaningful way. Sales are growing well and I am well compensated for my efforts. The nature of your questions clearly indicate you are a not currently an employee. I came to dendreon 3 years ago and it has been the best decision I ever made.
Click to expand...

We are happy for you. If you are in fact in the sales force. Newbie- training does a great job with the study and the clinical piece. They do not have the time to prepare you for the real world of this job which are the logistics, salesforce.com, reimbursement, contract, and managing the complications of the treatment. Try to team up with a senior person on your team to help you. There are no sales trainers in the field and the new people are left with a steep learning curve. Newbie, you obviously work here unlike this responder that says the same to every post. There is a great deal of nepotism here and yes many people in the sales force are from a couple of companies. Best of luck to you.
 






With respect to revenue growth, Provenge showed good overall sales growth of 5% in Q4 2012, the latest reported results, and are shown below in the company press release. The most important segment, community urology, grew 25% last quarter. It is the most important segment since most prostate cancer patients (including those with advanced prostate cancer) are treated by urologists. The academic segment declined.

With respect to the background of sales reps outside your territory, get onto Linkedin and search around for the backgrounds of Dendreon sales reps and Dendreon sales management and you will see that our backgrounds are fairly diverse. It should be noted that there are a limited number of large companies that offer oncology drugs, so you should not expect a hugely diverse background, but all the large oncology drug companies are well represented at Dendreon

With respect to succeeding at Dendreon, you should realize that Provenge is the first and only immuntherapy ever approved for sale, so market acceptance takes time but will occur. Provenge is a good product with minimal side effects and the docs receive ASP plus 6%, which is about $6k, so they have incentive to prescribe. With any new treatment type there is typically some resistance among some docs to prescribe. Once they get comfortable they tend to prescribe more and more. I was an early rep involved in the launch of Herceptin at Genentech, the first monoclonal antibody, which is used to treat breast cancer. For the first we years sales were slow and there were marketing challenges, but it eventually caught on in a big way. I expect the same type of product life cycle for Provenge. With time I expect the drug to do well. Like advised above, try to find a strong mentor in your team to help you out. Starting out at a new company is never easy, but if you work hard you will very likely do well. Good luck.

Dendreon Announces Preliminary Fourth Quarter 2012 Revenues
Press Release: Dendreon Corporation – Mon, Jan 7, 2013 9:00 AM

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Dendreon Corporation (DNDN) today announced preliminary revenues for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2012. Net product revenue for the quarter is expected to be approximately $85.5 million, which includes an approximate $3.8 million favorable adjustment to the Company’s chargebacks reserve due to a change in estimate. On a pro-forma basis, excluding this adjustment, revenue for the quarter is expected to be approximately $81.6 million, up 5% on a sequential basis.

Recent Highlights:
Continued strong performance in community accounts:
-Community urology grew 25% overall quarter over quarter
-Community oncology grew 4% overall quarter over quarter
-Community accounts represent 71% of total sales, up from 58% in Q4 2011
-Natural shift away from academic, which declined 9% quarter over quarter
-Continued new physician interest in PROVENGE® (sipuleucel-T):
Added 61 net new accounts in the fourth quarter, bringing total number of infusing accounts to 802.

“We have focused our commercial efforts on growing our community accounts, where we see the greatest long-term revenue opportunity. Having achieved our highest quarter ever for community sales, we believe that our community strategy is working,” said John H. Johnson, president, chairman and chief executive officer. “Our key account management teams, combined with improved sales execution and direct-to-patient initiatives, are contributing to the increased use of PROVENGE in community oncology and urology settings, a trend we saw beginning in the third quarter. We are pleased that physicians continue to recognize the importance of sequencing therapy options in advanced prostate cancer treatment and the key role PROVENGE can play as front-line therapy in mCRPC.”
 
Last edited by a moderator:






Top Bottom
Back
Quote