PharmaGiles writes ,,,

Nophartis: doing the bleedin’ obvious…

CEO Don Vacellata's growth mantra for Nophartis is “Back to the Eighties…”

Five neuroscientists file nervously into Nophartis' vast boardroom in Nether Wallop, UK. CEO Don Q. Vacellata is seated at the table, along with nine senior executives that make up the company's innovation board. The scientists hope to persuade Vacellata to move forward on an experimental vaccine for Restless Dick Syndrome, an illness that afflicts 25 million people worldwide. Even a moderately effective treatment would be a blockbuster, but testing the vaccine would take years and several hundred million dollars.
“Fools! Assholes!” screams Vacellata. "Why am I surrounded by frigging idiots?!"
He presses a large red button on the desk in front of him. A trap door opens under the five panic-stricken neuroscientists, dropping them into the flaming pit beneath. Their screams are excruciating but brief. Smoke, along with the unspeakable smell of roasting human flesh, billows into the boardroom before the trap door closes again.
Vacellata turns to his terrified senior executives.
“Let that be a message to you all. This organisation does not tolerate failure,” he growls, stroking a large white cat that is sitting in his lap.
Vacellata's ability to eliminate researchers who are studying the world's most troubling diseases is business as usual for Nophartis — and for many other big drug makers besides.
But unlike most CEOs in the pharmaceutical industry, it has recently dawned on Vacellata just what is was that made it so successful in the 1980’s, prior to influx of MBAs and the dominance of “business managers” over professional scientists, a reign that subsequently wrecked havoc on the ability of pharmaceutical companies to discover new medicines of genuine value.
He has now resolved to push new drugs through the long testing process only if they are backed by proven science. It doesn't matter whether the diseases the drugs treat are rare and the initial markets minuscule. Once a drug proves its worth against one disease, Vacellata reasons, it can be tested against others.
“That’s what we did back in the eighties,” Vacellata recalls, “before chasing me-toos and mega-mergers became the fashion.”
"It’s completely obvious I know, but if you are guided purely by financial estimates and not the science, you end up wasting time and money," he says.

LOSING PATIENCE

If Nophartis can quickly build on this blinding flash of the obvious, it could mark a turning point for both the company and the industry.
“Even though I’ve managed to hold our share-price steady despite the collapse of those of other pharmaceutical companies over the past few years, our usual crop of greedy and short-sighted shareholders are getting restless,” Vacellata explains.
“Why, some investors even refuse to acknowledge my god-like ability, and are suggesting that I should divest my twin roles of CEO and Chairman of the Board,” he snorts indignantly.

“Don’t they recognise my divine powers? I am an irreplaceable genius,” he boasts, in a manner reminiscent of the late St. Jean Pierre of Garnier.

Certainly his “compensation package” of $20m a year is of biblical proportions.

“I’m no Mother Theresa,” quotes Vacellata unrepentantly. “In fact, I’m a cheap date…”

“But by actually paying scientists to do proper research and development, instead of firing them in favour of the recruitment of hoards of MBAs and HR managers, we think we can increase of chances of discovering new and valuable medicines.”

“Not that I care,” Vacellata quips. “After all, I’m a CEO. I get paid millions, whether I succeed or fail. But by simply doing the obvious and bucking the usual knee-jerk pharmaceutical CEO tactics of spin-offs, mergers and off-shoring , I might get lucky…”

But there is no doubt that the handsome, charismatic and popular chief of Nophartis is a colossus amongst his peers in the pharmaceutical industry. His legendary wit and wisdom and his warm and generous personality, coupled with a shrewd and incisive intellect make him one of most wonderful human beings that has ever lived. Not only does he reputedly have one of the largest penises in the business world, but he also…

(continues on in a similarly sycophantic vein for another 3 pages)

Pharmagossip draws our attention to another example of the sort of hagiographic sycophancy that masquerades as financial journalism these days….