The AbbVie Culture Change Continues: 100 Scientists Will Be Laid Off

[Anonymous]

No new drugs, no R&D employees! The business equation is very SIMPLE!! This is not a university for the liberal unproductive leaches!!

Correct. It is not a university for anything. It is a GED launchpad for Corporate White Collar Republican leeches who can't spell.

 

[Anonymous]

Correct. It is not a university for anything. It is a GED launchpad for Corporate White Collar Republican leeches who can't spell.

I don't understand the name-calling on either side of this issue. A previous poster hit the nail on the head when he/she said Abbott/Abbvie was not a "discovery" company. This is now a trend in many big pharma companies. Why have a big, expensive R & D program when you can find smaller companies with promising compounds but without the financial power to bring them to market? I'm not going to knock scientists or marketers, each have a role to play. The decisions made by the company are strictly a numbers game. All it takes is a spectacular, and costly, development failure like CTEP inhibitors to prod companies away from drug development and toward drug acquisition.

 

[Anonymous]

We must be a drug discovery company because we are Americans. Discovery is what Americans do best. It's in our blood. From the electric light bulb to the electric car, we are discoverers. My fellow Americans, all 99% of us, don't let some cracked pot communist, some Arabian dictator rob us of who we are, we are Americans!

 

[Anonymous]

I don't understand the name-calling on either side of this issue. A previous poster hit the nail on the head when he/she said Abbott/Abbvie was not a "discovery" company. This is now a trend in many big pharma companies. Why have a big, expensive R & D program when you can find smaller companies with promising compounds but without the financial power to bring them to market? I'm not going to knock scientists or marketers, each have a role to play. The decisions made by the company are strictly a numbers game. All it takes is a spectacular, and costly, development failure like CTEP inhibitors to prod companies away from drug development and toward drug acquisition.

it's a problem of mismanagement. look at companies like Genentech and BMS. They have strong internal r and d programs and they come out with drugs. the problem with abbvie is not scientists or the sales people. it is the scientific management that thrives on hr mandates rather than being scientists. At least in oncology, scientific managers have no to very scant oncology knowledge and spout nonsense in meetings. scientists that make sense are sidelined. if you don't have your own house in order, relying on the outside for marginal stuff at best is not going to cut it.

 

[Anonymous]

We must be a drug discovery company because we are Americans. Discovery is what Americans do best. It's in our blood. From the electric light bulb to the electric car, we are discoverers. My fellow Americans, all 99% of us, don't let some cracked pot communist, some Arabian dictator rob us of who we are, we are Americans!

Whoa up there, Pardner! I have "discovery" in my blood? What the heck are you talking about? I have some HDL cholesterol, and more, but "discovery"? what the heck are you talking about?
Oh, wait a minute, I get it, you are an assclown!
Nevermind

 

[Anonymous]

I don't understand the name-calling on either side of this issue. A previous poster hit the nail on the head when he/she said Abbott/Abbvie was not a "discovery" company. This is now a trend in many big pharma companies. Why have a big, expensive R & D program when you can find smaller companies with promising compounds but without the financial power to bring them to market? I'm not going to knock scientists or marketers, each have a role to play. The decisions made by the company are strictly a numbers game. All it takes is a spectacular, and costly, development failure like CTEP inhibitors to prod companies away from drug development and toward drug acquisition.

You mean like Solvay and androgel? Buying drugs in early development is great but highly competitive nowadays. The old school here would have to put aside all their relationship based assessment and actually have to learn how to assess a drug and/or company objectively, including the finances. I'm not sure the old boys club can do it. Ooops sorry for the name calling. Just calling a spade a spade.

 

[Anonymous]

Productivity Equation: 100 Abbvie scientists = 1 janitor

 

[Anonymous]

Productivity Equation: 100 Abbvie scientists = 1 janitor

Salary Equation: 1 CEO = approx 274 workers

 

[Anonymous]

Not like they actually produced any useful science! I say good riddance.

 

[Anonymous]

Not like they actually produced any useful science! I say good riddance.

Someone may be saying this about you next week. Of course, you may be some stockholder living in your mother's basement waiting around for your parents to kick the bucket; in that case it won't apply.

 

[Anonymous]

Someone may be saying this about you next week. Of course, you may be some stockholder living in your mother's basement waiting around for your parents to kick the bucket; in that case it won't apply.

Dude, you are onto me! Ma! I'm hungry! Meatloaf!

 

[Anonymous]

Heard from my DM that Oncology R&D is next on the chopping block. Evidently, our new drugs are knockoffs of drugs that Merck and BMS are already getting ready to launch. Our drugs are about 5 years behind competition!! Ugh!! Who is responsible for the R&D mess???

 

[Anonymous]

Heard from my DM that Oncology R&D is next on the chopping block. Evidently, our new drugs are knockoffs of drugs that Merck and BMS are already getting ready to launch. Our drugs are about 5 years behind competition!! Ugh!! Who is responsible for the R&D mess???

The bobbing head yes men who like to maintain a low profile in order to keep their jobs. They make sure no one ever gets mad at them.

 

[Anonymous]

We must be a drug discovery company because we are Americans. Discovery is what Americans do best. It's in our blood. From the electric light bulb to the electric car, we are discoverers. My fellow Americans, all 99% of us, don't let some cracked pot communist, some Arabian dictator rob us of who we are, we are Americans!

Yeah, but not every company is bred to "discover". Sometimes the best path is to take the ball from someone else and run with it. Maybe some of the big pharma companies realize they're no longer innovative enough to be on the leading edge of R & D, and depend on smaller, less hide-bound partners to bring forth new meds. The biggies have the financial strength and legal expertise to bring the new products/devices to market. If Abbvie is as error-prone in original development as several posts have claimed, this may be the only route to the new entities survival as an independent company.

 

[Anonymous]

You mean like Solvay and androgel? Buying drugs in early development is great but highly competitive nowadays. The old school here would have to put aside all their relationship based assessment and actually have to learn how to assess a drug and/or company objectively, including the finances. I'm not sure the old boys club can do it. Ooops sorry for the name calling. Just calling a spade a spade.

The name-calling I was referring to was between a couple of posters, one ripping scientists, the other management, with the targets' supposed political inclinations involved. Criticizing decisions that have been failures isn't name-calling, it's "calling a spade a spade" as you put it. I don't know if the current Abbvie leadership can truly transform the company into the "lean, mean, and nimble" biopharmaceutical company they say is their goal, but I believe the company won't remain afloat/independent if they don't. Either way, a lot of people are going to be displaced in the attempt.

 

[Anonymous]

Heard from my DM that Oncology R&D is next on the chopping block. Evidently, our new drugs are knockoffs of drugs that Merck and BMS are already getting ready to launch. Our drugs are about 5 years behind competition!! Ugh!! Who is responsible for the R&D mess???

that's actually completely false. Merck and bms are developing immunotherapy for oncology. we are more into the adc, mAb, sm space. get your facts straight moron before you spread rumors. and your DM has no clue about anything.

 

[Anonymous]

Heard from my DM that Oncology R&D is next on the chopping block. Evidently, our new drugs are knockoffs of drugs that Merck and BMS are already getting ready to launch. Our drugs are about 5 years behind competition!! Ugh!! Who is responsible for the R&D mess???

yea that's bs. Sullivan needs to be fired first. he and his cronies are the ones that made the mess. oncology r&d did get cut in the latest round. a lot of folks from redwood city that were in oncology got laid off. you obviously are from sales since you are just spreading rumors.

 

[Anonymous]

You mean like Solvay and androgel? Buying drugs in early development is great but highly competitive nowadays. The old school here would have to put aside all their relationship based assessment and actually have to learn how to assess a drug and/or company objectively, including the finances. I'm not sure the old boys club can do it. Ooops sorry for the name calling. Just calling a spade a spade.

Some years back, I met a physician who was involved with of a group that helped small companies with promising investigational compounds find partners with deep pockets. I'm sure you're correct that securing these deals takes a savvy partner, well-versed in negotiation and assessment. Can Abbvie be that kind of company? I'm not sure either, but at this point, it's gonna be sink or swim for the new company 'cause there won't be any parent to fall back on.

 

[Anonymous]

Some years back, I met a physician who was involved with of a group that helped small companies with promising investigational compounds find partners with deep pockets. I'm sure you're correct that securing these deals takes a savvy partner, well-versed in negotiation and assessment. Can Abbvie be that kind of company? I'm not sure either, but at this point, it's gonna be sink or swim for the new company 'cause there won't be any parent to fall back on.

They don't evaluate objectively. The best example is bardoxolone - this dud was pushed by Mary szela who was a dumbass and the commercial guys. That was a $400 million thud Combined with the other $400 million we paid for Reata's other crap that was expensive. They do deals based solely on commercial not on the science and actual drug. It is a good old white boys club with management here. Higher management is utterly incompetent

 

[Anonymous]

Heard from my DM that Oncology R&D is next on the chopping block. Evidently, our new drugs are knockoffs of drugs that Merck and BMS are already getting ready to launch. Our drugs are about 5 years behind competition!! Ugh!! Who is responsible for the R&D mess???

Heard this as well from my DM. BMS, Genentech, Merck are pursuing immunotherapy drugs that will revolutionize CA therapy. Abbvie R&D is still working on old approaches and we won't have a market should any of our drugs get approved in the next ten years. Facts are facts and I am not drinking the Kool Aid anymore. Be informed and take care of you and your family FIRST!!!! I am going to interview with companies that have a pipeline!!!!!!!!