Rozerem is gone as of March 31

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This is very sad. Another reminder that Takeda's best days are behind it. I remember the launch of Rozerem. It was an exciting time and everyone thought it would be a blockbuster. I personally thought the commercials were clever, although I realize many would disagree. Rozerem is a metaphor for Takeda.
 




Anonymous said:
This is very sad. Another reminder that Takeda's best days are behind it. I remember the launch of Rozerem. It was an exciting time and everyone thought it would be a blockbuster. I personally thought the commercials were clever, although I realize many would disagree. Rozerem is a metaphor for Takeda.
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Many would disagree??? Did you think New Coke was a good idea back in 1990? Holy crap Rozerem is a metaphor for you
 




Anonymous said:
This is very sad. Another reminder that Takeda's best days are behind it. I remember the launch of Rozerem. It was an exciting time and everyone thought it would be a blockbuster. I personally thought the commercials were clever, although I realize many would disagree. Rozerem is a metaphor for Takeda.
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I also remember getting 100 rx's a week! Seems like such a looooooong time ago.
 




Anonymous said:
Many would disagree??? Did you think New Coke was a good idea back in 1990? Holy crap Rozerem is a metaphor for you
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I don't understand your point. What is the relevance of new Coke? It represented the foolish remake of a successful product. Rozerem was a new product supported by weak efficacy data. Don't be late for your anger management class.
 








This product was launched by the old "select" sales force. Most of them had no launch experience, were hired after actos was already moving and well covered by major plans. The select DM's were mostly younger and inexperienced leaders. They basically went into battle thinking it was going to be easy like actos. When they found out it was difficult, they gave up. To make it worse, there was even less accountability for performance than now (if you can imagine). So they got their butt's kicked by aggressive competition, rolled over, and were allowed to feel sorry for themselves and check out. It was pathetic. Now I know the drug doesn't knock people out, etc. blah blah. It's not supposed to sedate people - a selling point. But at one point in time, managed care access wasn't that bad and marketing had a clever campaign. The lessen from this - hire aggressive sales people, pay them well, and hold them accountable for performance.
 




Anonymous said:
This product was launched by the old "select" sales force. Most of them had no launch experience, were hired after actos was already moving and well covered by major plans. The select DM's were mostly younger and inexperienced leaders. They basically went into battle thinking it was going to be easy like actos. When they found out it was difficult, they gave up. To make it worse, there was even less accountability for performance than now (if you can imagine). So they got their butt's kicked by aggressive competition, rolled over, and were allowed to feel sorry for themselves and check out. It was pathetic. Now I know the drug doesn't knock people out, etc. blah blah. It's not supposed to sedate people - a selling point. But at one point in time, managed care access wasn't that bad and marketing had a clever campaign. The lessen from this - hire aggressive sales people, pay them well, and hold them accountable for performance.
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Love it. Truer words were never spoken.
 




Anonymous said:
This product was launched by the old "select" sales force. Most of them had no launch experience, were hired after actos was already moving and well covered by major plans. The select DM's were mostly younger and inexperienced leaders. They basically went into battle thinking it was going to be easy like actos. When they found out it was difficult, they gave up. To make it worse, there was even less accountability for performance than now (if you can imagine). So they got their butt's kicked by aggressive competition, rolled over, and were allowed to feel sorry for themselves and check out. It was pathetic. Now I know the drug doesn't knock people out, etc. blah blah. It's not supposed to sedate people - a selling point. But at one point in time, managed care access wasn't that bad and marketing had a clever campaign. The lessen from this - hire aggressive sales people, pay them well, and hold them accountable for performance.
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You're half correct in your analysis although you either omit or are unaware of a very important point...I doubt you were in the home office in the weeks leading up to launch when a senior ranking executive stated, "We know we're going to have problems with this drug because in clinical trials, patients repeatedly reported they didn't believe it worked."

Let's get something straight, the largest factor in the success of a sleep drug is patient reported effects. When a patient reports and/or believes the drug is working, it provides the best odds of compliance and improvement in latency to sleep onset, persistent sleep combined with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

The true lesson is, when an "in-house" doctor develops a compound that many patients in clinical trials believe is ineffective despite what MSL & MWT show, tighten up your boot straps, temper your enthusiasm and take a huge step back and reconsider launching. If you must launch; be a little more realistic. Aggressive salespeople, holding them accountable and paying them for performance would NOT have mattered ONE MORSEL. Understand the facts and details prior to launch and you would know that. Now you do.
 




Anonymous said:
You're half correct in your analysis although you either omit or are unaware of a very important point...I doubt you were in the home office in the weeks leading up to launch when a senior ranking executive stated, "We know we're going to have problems with this drug because in clinical trials, patients repeatedly reported they didn't believe it worked."
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Of course NONE of this was ever shared with field sales. We were all told that this was going to be a super huge success. When it wasn't, the reps became frustrated and stopped trying. It's tough to sell a product even you don't believe in.
 




You certainly bring light to another half of the equation. I was not in the home office, but in the field very close to what I described in my post. I can tell you that those representatives who were successful with this product were aggressive and held themselves accountable for performance even after physicians started pushing back on efficacy. So yes, it did matter. Since you have been around for a while - why in your opinion did it take the Nissen article to sink Avandia? Actos was clearly the best in class, equal coverage, better marketing, lipids, etc. but could not gain over 50% share (nationwide) despite GSK's series of blunders with stocking pharmacies, quality in manufacturing, etc.
 




Anonymous said:
You certainly bring light to another half of the equation. I was not in the home office, but in the field very close to what I described in my post. I can tell you that those representatives who were successful with this product were aggressive and held themselves accountable for performance even after physicians started pushing back on efficacy. So yes, it did matter. Since you have been around for a while - why in your opinion did it take the Nissen article to sink Avandia? Actos was clearly the best in class, equal coverage, better marketing, lipids, etc. but could not gain over 50% share (nationwide) despite GSK's series of blunders with stocking pharmacies, quality in manufacturing, etc.
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You can't compare two entirely different disease states and expect circumstances in one therapeutic area to have similar trends/results in another completely different disorder/disease state. Why you choose to ignore details prior to launch that in total, set EVERYONE up for disappointment (that's putting it lightly) is something I can't make heads or tails with.

The Nissen article alone did not sink Avandia. It re-introduced questions that were well-documented prior to Avandia launch. A broad range of inappropriate conduct exists throughout a variety of outlets including the U.S. Senate Finance Committee which has jurisdiction over medicare and medicaid programs and their findings on GSK intimidation (toward a highly regarded Endocrinologist who raised this question pre-launch).

Lastly, Rozerem worked...according to MSL tests despite patient reported diaries where patients were not convinced they fell asleep faster...although the science stated otherwise. Specifically, brain wave activity showed patients fell asleep faster on Rozerem than without, however many of the same patients didn't REPORT feeling like they fell asleep faster. In the primary care arena, sleep agents are not about measuring brain wave activity, but WHAT THE PATIENT REPORTED TO BE EFFECTIVE!!! When a patient reports otherwise, physicians move on. Sorry Charlie, but most physicians who jumped on Rozerem fell off the wagon. Let's focus on the big-picture and not some small successes compared to the greater scene at large.
 




And I'm calling bullshit that you were not in the home office. Reading between the lines of your questions gives it away. I'm not blaming marketing or sales. Nor am I saying I would've done things drastically different. I do believe as a result of this drug being developed in-house by a Takeda doc in Japan, there was too much hopeful optimism on it's success b/c the "science behind it showed it worked" despite patient reported diaries stating otherwise.

Please don't tell me a group of people are not responsible for deeply underestimating this fact. Please. The #1 objection in the field from docs was, "Most of patients I try it on say it doesn't work." What happened in pre-launch trials was mirrored quite well post-launch and remains TO THIS DAY!

Therefore, the expectation on marketing and the field was to overcome it and create a picture for the physician that wasn't well validated in clinical trials specific to patient reported effects. Come on, someone was asking and hoping for a miracle.
 












WHO THE F*&K CARES!!!!! I'm just happy to be done with having to promote this worthless crap product anymore. With all the DTC we did early on, I'm fairly certain we spent more on DTC than Rozerem ever grossed is sales. Pathetic. Simply pathetic. I don't care who is to blame or who did this or that wrong. I only care that we wasted money on a shit product and continued to waste more money with more DTC and drain company funds when if they would have asked for anyones input they would have been told this is a dog that will never make any money. Instead, we kept throwing good money after bad. No wonder our company is in such a mess. No pipeline (that ARB is not going to do a single friggin' thing in a crowded and soon to be very generic space and weight loss product. HA HA HA HA HA HA!), no motivation, crappy management that treats this place like a hobby instead of a job.

Good luck to us all.
 




Anonymous said:
WHO THE F*&K CARES!!!!! I'm just happy to be done with having to promote this worthless crap product anymore. With all the DTC we did early on, I'm fairly certain we spent more on DTC than Rozerem ever grossed is sales. Pathetic. Simply pathetic. I don't care who is to blame or who did this or that wrong. I only care that we wasted money on a shit product and continued to waste more money with more DTC and drain company funds when if they would have asked for anyones input they would have been told this is a dog that will never make any money. Instead, we kept throwing good money after bad. No wonder our company is in such a mess. No pipeline (that ARB is not going to do a single friggin' thing in a crowded and soon to be very generic space and weight loss product. HA HA HA HA HA HA!), no motivation, crappy management that treats this place like a hobby instead of a job.

Good luck to us all.
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You're right. I believe they recouped the amount spent on DTC (by now). However, if you combine the amount spent on DTC with the cost of payroll for the reps promoting it...that would be a resounding "NO". Total loss. Sad.

It just pisses me off to no end when some jackass (who used to work in marketing) comes on this board and has the audacity to say the salespeople gave up. That's total b.s. This drug had major-league patient reported efficacy problems pre-launch and not even that bloated thief Jerry Acuff could've overcome that.
 








Given that it still doesn't work and is arguably the least liked sleep aide in history, plus the most disliked, according to patient ratings on drugs.com, it's remarkable that its excessive cost and robust side effect profile haven't completely tanked it. An honest ad for it would show someone in bed, wide awake, mentally counting dollar bills leaping over the red/black line on his balance sheet. The narration would be the list of side effects, ending with a rhetorical question:

"Rozerem didn't work for anyone else. What makes you think it will work for you?"

Followed with "Talk to your doctor about morphine."
 




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