I am a critical care specialist (sales rep) for The Medicines Company and have been here for 3 years. I was here before the "Aventis Invasion" as it seems to be called, and I know all of the management pretty well. Many former employees and competitors seem to have nasty opinions of TMC (which can be expected), and many people will think my side is biased (which it is to some degree), but I hope to give my open, honest evaluation of the company for those who want to know. You can obviously reply, but this is my first and last post on this site - I will not be checking back.
TMC was started by Clive Meanwell, MD - a hematologist. He saw an opportunity to buy a promising drug (Angiomax) from Biogen - who could only afford to keep one of its two drugs in the early 90's. The other one's sales are over one billion, so they made the right choice of which one to sell. Clive and his venture capital backers slowly but surely invested in more and more studies as the data continued to come back positive. The sales force grew and got more talented, and the need for more experience in upper management arose. The "Aventis Invasion" as it is called, really refers to the hiring of John Kelley and Doug Randall as the heads of operations and sales, and the hiring of many talented people they knew and brought over. I will not say I know these men exceptionally well, but I have interacted with them on dozens of occasions - many times one on one. They are both sincere men who try to do the right things for the patients, the employees, and the stockholders. They are also both very adept at their jobs.
TMC is growing, and with that comes a lot of growing pains. Some employees who liked the small biotech environment feel like we are getting too big. As the talent level rises with each expansion, reps and managers feel more pressure to become better as well. Those who struggle, or those who do very well as reps but are not qualified to move up become frustrated and jump ship. According to many of the posts, we must be the only company to ever have experienced this. Also, this company is one of the few courageous enough to admit when they have made a hiring mistake and fix it. Some people are "promoted to their level of incompetence" and asked to step back down, or they decide to leave outright.
The bottom line is TMC is a well run company with employees from top to bottom who care about patients, display integrity, and work hard. I am not implying that everyone does everything perfectly all the time - if your company does please let me know where I can invest - but I am implying that if anyone has had reasons to be skeptical, it is me, yet I remain very happy working here even after all of the changes.
To those who have issues with TMC I would say just look at the message board for TMC on this website. When I looked I saw that about 80% of the posts were trying to get information on how to get a job here. Either the world if full of sadists who want to work with horrible drugs and for horrible bosses, or maybe it is a reasonably good company to work for. I am not saying I would not leave if something better came along, I'm just saying I have worked for much, much worse in the past.
TMC was started by Clive Meanwell, MD - a hematologist. He saw an opportunity to buy a promising drug (Angiomax) from Biogen - who could only afford to keep one of its two drugs in the early 90's. The other one's sales are over one billion, so they made the right choice of which one to sell. Clive and his venture capital backers slowly but surely invested in more and more studies as the data continued to come back positive. The sales force grew and got more talented, and the need for more experience in upper management arose. The "Aventis Invasion" as it is called, really refers to the hiring of John Kelley and Doug Randall as the heads of operations and sales, and the hiring of many talented people they knew and brought over. I will not say I know these men exceptionally well, but I have interacted with them on dozens of occasions - many times one on one. They are both sincere men who try to do the right things for the patients, the employees, and the stockholders. They are also both very adept at their jobs.
TMC is growing, and with that comes a lot of growing pains. Some employees who liked the small biotech environment feel like we are getting too big. As the talent level rises with each expansion, reps and managers feel more pressure to become better as well. Those who struggle, or those who do very well as reps but are not qualified to move up become frustrated and jump ship. According to many of the posts, we must be the only company to ever have experienced this. Also, this company is one of the few courageous enough to admit when they have made a hiring mistake and fix it. Some people are "promoted to their level of incompetence" and asked to step back down, or they decide to leave outright.
The bottom line is TMC is a well run company with employees from top to bottom who care about patients, display integrity, and work hard. I am not implying that everyone does everything perfectly all the time - if your company does please let me know where I can invest - but I am implying that if anyone has had reasons to be skeptical, it is me, yet I remain very happy working here even after all of the changes.
To those who have issues with TMC I would say just look at the message board for TMC on this website. When I looked I saw that about 80% of the posts were trying to get information on how to get a job here. Either the world if full of sadists who want to work with horrible drugs and for horrible bosses, or maybe it is a reasonably good company to work for. I am not saying I would not leave if something better came along, I'm just saying I have worked for much, much worse in the past.