Merck going into generics?

[Anonymous]

Yep! New 3200 sq ft, hardwoods, 4 BR 3.5 BA, Granite, Stainless, 1 acre, 3 car garage, great neighborhood, 420k, 7k taxes. Ha, have fun in NJ/NY or CA for that matter. Life is good, especially that I don't work for Merck anymore....

That gem in NY.NJ Metro is way over a million to as as much as over 5 million depending on neighborhood. Taxes 25K-50K+ depending on school system and neighborhood...PS did I mention the income tax in these states.....not a life is good is a lot of ways.

 

[Anonymous]

Makes sense...why not? Have no idea if its true but why not!

Spend some time with Teva (for the US and EU) and Cipla and Sinopharm (for emerging markets) and compare them to Merck before you think that Merck can succeed and you can be happy in the world of generics.

 

[Anonymous]

Sounds about right...maybe a little lower (400-450K) now with the lousy market. Anything that old will need a nice wad of $$$$$ for updates (pipes, roof, furnace, outside/inside), maintenance and reparis. Taxes not too bad considering, better than most in the NY/NJ metro area. I guess thats about 1/4 acre lot and a just ok school system.

No - largely updated, $475--$525, 1/3rd acre, schools top 20 in NJ, agree about taxes (planned that part)....

 

[Anonymous]

Merck, down to their last fiber of being, believes that it can be the best at anything it sets out to succeed at. Unfortunately, their self-view and reality are far apart in the area of generics. Generics are all about price and Merck is an incredibly inefficient company with bloated overhead, wasteful spending, and cumbersome processes. Many former Merck employees have had the shock of their lives when they went into the generic business. It's hard work and you cannot make too many mistakes before the profit margin disappears. Even if they outsource everything related to making generics, the gross margins will be insufficient to keep that bag of hot air, Whitehouse Station, afloat. Merck will wander about for some time and then some day some truly competetive, skinflint company will reverse merge with Merck in order to keep the Merck name while actually being as generic as the worst of them. But when that happens Whitehouse Station will need to be just a memory of country club living in rural New Jersey.

vasotec,fosemax,pepcid,mevacor,zocor, just to name a few. The only time I stood up at a national meeting in the late 90's and ask: "Why doesn't merck market it's own generic version of these products to institutions (VA's, military, federal, state, hospitals etc.) prior to patent expiry?" The answer back from up front was: "merck is in the r&d business not in the generic business." So they just walked away from billions in revenue prefering to keep looking for that next blockbuster, which was vioxx. I wonder if they ever wished they had got into the generic business? Pobably not, in thier arrogance. I always felt merck should have kept medco also.

 

[Anonymous]

vasotec,fosemax,pepcid,mevacor,zocor, just to name a few. The only time I stood up at a national meeting in the late 90's and ask: "Why doesn't merck market it's own generic version of these products to institutions (VA's, military, federal, state, hospitals etc.) prior to patent expiry?" The answer back from up front was: "merck is in the r&d business not in the generic business." So they just walked away from billions in revenue prefering to keep looking for that next blockbuster, which was vioxx. I wonder if they ever wished they had got into the generic business? Pobably not, in thier arrogance. I always felt merck should have kept medco also.

We already did it once with the creation of West Point Pharma in the 80's and failed miserably. It was sold to another company. That may be why they ignored your suggestion at the meeting. On top of that, unlike other drug companies, Merck never would sell their products cheap to institutions even though we know that's a great way as a loss leader to generate retail business when patients are discharged from hospitals. It's a Merck thinking that I cannot understand.