Sell some Zohydro!!

[Anonymous]

At the risk of asking the obvious, why do you think Zohydro is having such a tough time? Bad press doesn't help, but the real key is payers and pain specialists.

If Zogenix went to payers and said, we'll discount it really well (which they should, just to get scripts up and pave the way for their abuse-deterrent formulation--who gives a poop about margin now?) and then goes to pain specialists and says, look, here's where it works, and payers are reimbursing it, I can't imagine any good pain specialist not writing a bunch of this stuff. They already write stuff that is just as dangerous.

Are payers putting up any obstacles for Zohydro? They typically don't give a crap about opioid addiction, so they can't be spooked by the bad press.

Please refer to post 10. As explained, I could expand upon post 10, but that would be hurtful, thus, I do not care to do that. Moreover, the past is the past, and it is time to right the ship. However, the ship will sink if senior management is unable to plug the holes at the same time. The employees are the most important asset; therefore, it is critical that the ship’s captain and its mates utilize a leadership style that will foster growth from the ground up. The question remains, do they, senior management, possess the skills required to effect positive change and place this ship on a proper course?

Moreover, am I correct in my assertion that Zohydro will be pulled the moment Purdue’s hydrocodone product is approved next month? The market has already discounted this potential reality. Thus, I remain concerned.

However, please remember this is not your site, thus, you are welcome to look, but please do not handle the merchandise. Your money is no good here.

 

[Anonymous]

Please refer to post 10. As explained, I could expand upon post 10, but that would be hurtful, thus, I do not care to do that. Moreover, the past is the past, and it is time to right the ship. However, the ship will sink if senior management is unable to plug the holes at the same time. The employees are the most important asset; therefore, it is critical that the ship’s captain and its mates utilize a leadership style that will foster growth from the ground up. The question remains, do they, senior management, possess the skills required to effect positive change and place this ship on a proper course?

Moreover, am I correct in my assertion that Zohydro will be pulled the moment Purdue’s hydrocodone product is approved next month? The market has already discounted this potential reality. Thus, I remain concerned.

However, please remember this is not your site, thus, you are welcome to look, but please do not handle the merchandise. Your money is no good here.

Hmm the after hours quote of $1.44 seems to prove someone likes the company

 

[Anonymous]

Please refer to post 10. As explained, I could expand upon post 10, but that would be hurtful, thus, I do not care to do that. Moreover, the past is the past, and it is time to right the ship. However, the ship will sink if senior management is unable to plug the holes at the same time. The employees are the most important asset; therefore, it is critical that the ship’s captain and its mates utilize a leadership style that will foster growth from the ground up. The question remains, do they, senior management, possess the skills required to effect positive change and place this ship on a proper course?

Moreover, am I correct in my assertion that Zohydro will be pulled the moment Purdue’s hydrocodone product is approved next month? The market has already discounted this potential reality. Thus, I remain concerned.

However, please remember this is not your site, thus, you are welcome to look, but please do not handle the merchandise. Your money is no good here.

I really have no skin in this game and am only an interested observer. Maybe senior management sucks. So what? Zohydro fills a clinical need. If reps hammer on pain specialists and just present the facts, Zohydro will get written IF the payer side is figured out, and I can't imagine why it wouldn't be. I don't know how they priced it or how their access is, but even if it's average this product should be written by pain specialists. PCPs are probably freaked and won't go near the stuff, but pain specialists should know better. Does anyone know how payers are responding to this? What tier is Zohydro?

 

[Anonymous]

Upper management does suck and in turn so does account management. BUT, upper mgmt thinks account mgmt is awesome is this is where the disconnect occurs. Thus, the reps get blamed for not being able to sell thru the obstacles of payments and step edits. It's a joke.

 

[Anonymous]

Okay everyone. You have the Alabama area doing so well. If you have one or two doc's writing over 200-400 in a week/month....I would say "pill mill". Great for the 2 reps who are getting all of the "praise" from Zogenix! However, what about the reps who are getting RX's from 6-12 different doc's? Nobody in the HO, RSM's recognize that you are working MORE than one or two offices to hit your numbers.

 

[Anonymous]

Okay everyone. You have the Alabama area doing so well. If you have one or two doc's writing over 200-400 in a week/month....I would say "pill mill". Great for the 2 reps who are getting all of the "praise" from Zogenix! However, what about the reps who are getting RX's from 6-12 different doc's? Nobody in the HO, RSM's recognize that you are working MORE than one or two offices to hit your numbers.

What type of docs are you guys targeting? Are the step edits really that bad?

I don't know how you guys priced this stuff but if you are at a significant discount from OxyContin you should be kicking their ass with pain specialists.

 

[Anonymous]

Upper management does suck and in turn so does account management. BUT, upper mgmt thinks account mgmt is awesome is this is where the disconnect occurs. Thus, the reps get blamed for not being able to sell thru the obstacles of payments and step edits. It's a joke.

Account management wants the sales force to create demand to help leverage formulary wins!! This is a new approach! I'm sure it's not new... It's just a tired and failed approach!!

 

[Anonymous]

Account management wants the sales force to create demand to help leverage formulary wins!! This is a new approach! I'm sure it's not new... It's just a tired and failed approach!!

I've never understood this approach. Let's make our customers write useless scripts and waste their time and generally make their lives complicated.

If Zogenix has brains (and I think they do), they should price Zohydro to sell. Payers will eat it up, they'll get volume, and that will tide them over til the new formulation comes out.

Some bean counter is probably worried that if they discount too much they kill the price of their new formulation but if they don't get traction, they kill the company.

 

[Anonymous]

Okay everyone. You have the Alabama area doing so well. If you have one or two doc's writing over 200-400 in a week/month....I would say "pill mill". Great for the 2 reps who are getting all of the "praise" from Zogenix! However, what about the reps who are getting RX's from 6-12 different doc's? Nobody in the HO, RSM's recognize that you are working MORE than one or two offices to hit your numbers.

FYI- those 2 docs rxing all those scripts have a pharmacy inside their clinic.... Completely illegal everywhere else in the country but not in bama

 

[Anonymous]

Ugh. No wonder why they are doing so well! Sorry we can't have these in all of our states! If so, we would all be winners! Prior auths and step edits are killing the rest of us.

 

[Anonymous]

Back when Zogenix was hiring, I was called for an interview. I am no longer in pain management sales, but was for 10 years. My first concern was the base and stock, which seemed very high for what the company was and had already hired. When I went to the interviews I was very surprised to see a lot of reps and managers with little to no pain experience. The manager for the district I would have been in had ZERO experience. Now I know that in America, where more than 90% of all hydrocodone/oxycodone produced is prescribed/diverted/abused that some think it will sell itself no matter what dummy you hire, and that is just not true. Any company needs good management and a good sales force to survive, but there are other factors at play as well here, with the press and new state laws. I realize this is your job and it is unfortunate, but you had to realize when you got this job there were red flags??? Seriously, the press, the high base and stock options (which I knew were worthless) were my first suspicion, especially seeing it being offered to people who were currently laid off or unemployed..... What company pays that kind of base to someone with no pain experience or is not even currently employed? The whole interview process was suspicious. I ended up staying at my current job even though they offered me about 10% more money, but the DM was a joke as well, and there was no way I was working for that douche. He couldn't even answer a basic question about the pain industry when asked. Embarrassing! But I have followed the company and have played the stock quite a bit since and made some money off of it being so volatile, and you still can. This drug is doomed and most, if not all of you, will lose your job, but I worked in pain for a decade and continued to see the growth in the dark side of this field, and if you have any morals you know that products like Zohydro are diverted or abused 75%+ of the time, with results that trickle down to the average taxpayer picking up the dirty bill. Eventually something has got to be done and Zogenix is the company where it starts, which sucks for you. Just the truth.

 

[Anonymous]

Back when Zogenix was hiring, I was called for an interview. I am no longer in pain management sales, but was for 10 years. My first concern was the base and stock, which seemed very high for what the company was and had already hired. When I went to the interviews I was very surprised to see a lot of reps and managers with little to no pain experience. The manager for the district I would have been in had ZERO experience. Now I know that in America, where more than 90% of all hydrocodone/oxycodone produced is prescribed/diverted/abused that some think it will sell itself no matter what dummy you hire, and that is just not true. Any company needs good management and a good sales force to survive, but there are other factors at play as well here, with the press and new state laws. I realize this is your job and it is unfortunate, but you had to realize when you got this job there were red flags??? Seriously, the press, the high base and stock options (which I knew were worthless) were my first suspicion, especially seeing it being offered to people who were currently laid off or unemployed..... What company pays that kind of base to someone with no pain experience or is not even currently employed? The whole interview process was suspicious. I ended up staying at my current job even though they offered me about 10% more money, but the DM was a joke as well, and there was no way I was working for that douche. He couldn't even answer a basic question about the pain industry when asked. Embarrassing! But I have followed the company and have played the stock quite a bit since and made some money off of it being so volatile, and you still can. This drug is doomed and most, if not all of you, will lose your job, but I worked in pain for a decade and continued to see the growth in the dark side of this field, and if you have any morals you know that products like Zohydro are diverted or abused 75%+ of the time, with results that trickle down to the average taxpayer picking up the dirty bill. Eventually something has got to be done and Zogenix is the company where it starts, which sucks for you. Just the truth.

Boy we sure could have used you around here as you seem to have all the answers. Im glad that you were smart enough to steer clear while the rest of us bought it hook line and sinker. If only...

You are misguided on a few things. First of all with the salary. Many of the reps that were already at Zogenix did not get more money to sell Zohydro because most didn't have pain experience. The new reps that came on did get higher salaries but that was because they DID have experience Certainly you didn't expect Zogenix to let go of the reps that kept this company afloat.

75% of opiods are diverted? I wont disagree with you that opiod abuse is a problem, and needs to be addressed, but where do you get 75%? That's the problem with statistics, 85.98076% of them are made up!

Things are tough right now, there is no denying that. I do believe if we can survive until an ADT form of Zohydro is available the future is bright. If not we'll be out on the streets. Wish we were all smart like you.

 

[Anonymous]

FYI- those 2 docs rxing all those scripts have a pharmacy inside their clinic.... Completely illegal everywhere else in the country but not in bama

Not true.

 

[Anonymous]

Not true.

YES IT IS I called the rep to ask how she was doing it

 

[Anonymous]

MNK blew it when their reps did not do a good job selling Sumavel when the company needed a boost badly. They are out of the running.

It's too bad too because everyone thought it was inevitable that we would co-promote Zohydro. Yes they sucked at selling Sumavel because they had no experience selling a migraine med and struggled with their targets, just like how we have no experience selling in the chronic pain market and are struggling with our pain docs. However, they did a pretty good job selling an ultra expensive difficult drug in Exalgo and have the relationships calling on our main targets for years.

An Endo partnership would have made sense too for the same reasons. But what do I know. I'm just a lowly rep trying to make my numbers with the 2 Drs willing to write for me.

 

[Anonymous]

It's too bad too because everyone thought it was inevitable that we would co-promote Zohydro. Yes they sucked at selling Sumavel because they had no experience selling a migraine med and struggled with their targets, just like how we have no experience selling in the chronic pain market and are struggling with our pain docs. However, they did a pretty good job selling an ultra expensive difficult drug in Exalgo and have the relationships calling on our main targets for years.

An Endo partnership would have made sense too for the same reasons. But what do I know. I'm just a lowly rep trying to make my numbers with the 2 Drs willing to write for me.

Who are you guys targeting? If it were me, I'd target pain specialists exclusively. They are used to using tough meds and would have no fear prescribing Zohydro, despite the bad press. The further you get away from pain specialists, the more spooked the docs get.

 

[Anonymous]

Who are you guys targeting? If it were me, I'd target pain specialists exclusively. They are used to using tough meds and would have no fear prescribing Zohydro, despite the bad press. The further you get away from pain specialists, the more spooked the docs get.

That's exactly who we are targeting. And many of them are afraid to write it.

 

[Anonymous]

That's exactly who we are targeting. And many of them are afraid to write it.

Next time they they get queesy about Zohydro ask them how often the prescribe 30 mg of immediate-release oxycodone (Roxicodone), and ask them whether 30 mg of Zohydro is any more dangerous. FDA said the Opana ER abuse-deterrence sucks, so if they prescribe Opana ER, they should have not problem with Zohydro.

Stick to your guns. Challenge these guys on their assumptions. A lot of this is hype with no science behind it.

 

[Anonymous]

That's exactly who we are targeting. And many of them are afraid to write it.

Next time they they get queesy about Zohydro ask them how often the prescribe 30 mg of immediate-release oxycodone (Roxicodone), and ask them whether 30 mg of Zohydro is any more dangerous. FDA said the Opana ER abuse-deterrence sucks, so if they prescribe Opana ER, they should have not problem with Zohydro.

Stick to your guns. Challenge these guys on their assumptions. A lot of this is hype with no science behind it.

 

[Anonymous]

Next time they they get queesy about Zohydro ask them how often the prescribe 30 mg of immediate-release oxycodone (Roxicodone), and ask them whether 30 mg of Zohydro is any more dangerous. FDA said the Opana ER abuse-deterrence sucks, so if they prescribe Opana ER, they should have not problem with Zohydro.

Stick to your guns. Challenge these guys on their assumptions. A lot of this is hype with no science behind it.

You make a very good point, but it's easier said than done. You're challenging years of habit and mindset. It's much easier when you already have an established relationship which most of us don't. These drs would readily believe what they read on the internet, hear from the media and watch on tv than trust their new rep, let alone the zohydro rep.