Pharma Giles writes...

There’s a lot of it about…

Camera pans across a cheap, glittery studio backdrop consisting of a star-spangled score board emblazoned with the names of major pharmaceutical companies. In front of the set, anonymous hired hands are gabbling into telephones while a whirling digital display on the board behind them notches up ever-increasing numbers.

Enter our host for this evening, Pharm. RMA’s very own “Big Chief” Billy Tauzin (for it is he), clad in a ghastly fluorescent pink game-show suit…

VOICEOVER: Yes, it’s time once more to tune in to Big Pharma’s Uhhhhhnemploymethon!!! And here’s your host, Biiiiiiig Billy Tauzin!!!

(Fanfare of tinny trumpets. Camera pans over to wildly applauding audience of investment fund managers, then back to the stage as Tauzin bounds up to the microphone to the tune of “Happy Days Are Here Again”…)

TAUZIN: Thank you, friends, thank you. Well, it’s that time of the year, friends, when the nights grow long and cold, and when the harsh chill of Winter gnaws at our Armani suits and brings our thoughts around to those whose need is greatest...

(Camera zooms in on Tauzin’s concerned expression).

That’s right, friends. I’m talking about our colleagues, our Pharmaceutical Company Senior Executives…

(Murmur of appreciation and occasional bleat from massed ranks of investment fund managers)

These are people whose financial need knows no bounds. And friends, you of all people know how tough things have become for these guys. Why, out there, there are even some pharmaceutical executives who, this year, have barely scraped six figure bonuses…

(Gasps of disbelief from audience…)

Yes, friends, hard to believe I know, but it’s true. And yes, friends, there are even some pharma CEOs who, in their dotage, have been cruelly cast out of their companies, with only their golden parachutes and multi-million dollar pension schemes to cushion them against the cold, harsh chill of reality…

(Crys of “shame, shame” from the audience…)

For example, it seems like only yesterday that our dear, dear friend Fred Hassan, was picking up the 2007 Scrips Executive of the Year Award for his selfless work in inflating the share price of his companies and then selling them on before the multi-billion dollar malfeasance settlements came home to roost…

(Cheers and cries of “huzzah for Fred” and “trebles all round…)

Yes friends, spare a thought for the tragic case of Fred Hassan…

(Video clip of a laughing Fred Hassan, frolicking in an Olympic-sized swimming pool filled with hundred dollar bills)

…cast out of the new Merck organisation, with only $175 million to his name. And this decade has seen other such human tragedies. Remember Hank McKinnell, cruelly ousted from Pfizer with a pay-off of only $200 million between him and abject poverty…

(Cut to clip of a tanned and fit HK, sitting under an umbrella beside a swimming-pool, against a back-drop of tropical, sun-drenched paradise. A bikini-clad lovely pours him a glass of champagne, which he ironically raises to the camera…)

Yes friends, it’s true. Poor Hank, this once-mighty colossus of the pharmaceutical industry, is now reduced to selling luxury holiday homes and leading hostile foreign bids for iconic national beer companies for a living...

(Cut to a shot of an audience of sobbing, weeping investment fund managers…)

But today, friends, we’re gathered here today to strike back against the tales of sadness you’ve seen today…

(Cheers from the audience…)

Today, we’ll be reaching out to those pharmaceutical CEOs who are still lucky enough to be in positions of power and influence. And yes friends, the team here will be reaching out to these top names in our industry and begging them to make those little, McKinsey’s-inspired, 10.0% sacrifices to ensure that they and their colleagues can carry on raking in buckets of money, just like they always have done…

(Wild applause from audience…)

…and that our CEOs can carry on through life, knowing their own financial futures will be so much more richly assured than those of Hank or Fred...

(Apoplectic standing ovation and wild screams of adulation from the audience…)

First on the line is Pfizer’s Jeff Kindler. Hi Jeff, what are you offering us?

JEFF KINDLER: Hi Billy. Firstly, can I just say that it’s really difficult to terminate people's jobs and to ask them to leave the company, which in many cases they've served for years and years…

(Laughter from audience...)

JEFF KINDLER: …and that when it comes to lay-offs, we will move quickly, act fairly and communicate openly…

(Screams of convulsive hilarity from audience…)

BILLY TAUZIN: (wipes tears of laughter from eyes) Well, that’s just great, Jeff, just great. You can’t beat the oldies. So now we just drug them into a stupor instead, eh? (Laughter from audience.) But seriously, Jeff, what’s the bottom line?

JEFF KINDLER: Thirty-one thousand lay-offs by 2012, Billy…

BILLY TAUZIN: Wow! Thirty-one thousand jobs, freely given up to the cause. That’s fantastic! How ‘bout that, friends?

(Scoreboard numbers rattle round in a blur. Apoplectic standing ovation and shrieks of ecstatic joy from the audience. Orchestra plays a couple of crazy, speeded-up bars of “Happy Days Are Here Again”…)

BILLY TAUZIN: Well thanks, Jeff, a great effort. And now it’s over to J&J CEO, Bill Weldon.

(Cut to Bill Weldon, sitting by the swimming pool of his luxury Florida waterfront villa)

Can you hear me, Bill?

BILL WELDON: Loud and clear, Billy.

BILLY TAUZIN: I gather life is pretty hard for you at the moment, Bill…

BILL WELDON: Yeah, that’s right, times are tough (pops cork on bottle of Krug and fills champagne glass). Why, I’m down to only being able to afford one pokey little $8.5 million Florida waterfront villa this year. So no-one knows better about the need to cut company overheads than I do. That’s why I’m axing 8,000 jobs at J&J over the next couple of years…

BILLY TAUZIN: That’s fantastic news, Bill, just fantastic! (Scoreboard rattles up the tally). How ‘bout a big round of applause for Bill, eh, friends?

(Wild cheering, foot-stomping and standing ovation from the audience. Spontaneous chorus of “Hail To The Chief”…)

BILLY TAUZIN: And now it’s over to London, Engerland, for GSK’s Andrew Witty. Andy, how are you?

ANDREW WITTY: Well, by and large and all things considered, my personal situation could be said to be within 7.4% of an optimal median. However, having said that, I think I may be developing a slight cold, which could create a scenario whereby my personal happiness rating may be…

BILLY TAUZIN: Yeah, that’s great, Andy, just great. So how many lay-offs are you making?

ANDREW WITTY: Well, there are many complex and undecided factors in our current business model at the moment, Mr. Tauzin, and I feel that I am not really able to give you a quantitative analysis of the impact of our organisational restructuring plans upon the global staffing numbers of our multi-national operations. We have to consider (drones on for five minutes. Cut to audience, who are slumped in their seats, comatose…)

BILLY TAUZIN: Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut you off there, Andy. We’ll put you down for 10,000 lay-offs, OK?

ANDREW WITTY: Well, we have expanded our restructuring programme and now expect to realise pre-tax total annual savings of £1.7 billion by 2011, with related pre-tax charges of £3.6 billion.…

BILLY TAUZIN: So you’ll be spending £3.6 billion to save £1.7 billion. Well, that’s great, Andy, just great, true CEO genius. And thanks for your contribution to communication, transparency and decisiveness. (Snores of appreciation from an apathetic audience). And now thankfully (and I’d never thought I’d say that) it’s over to Dave Brennan at AZ. Dave?

DAVE BRENNAN: Hi there, Billy. We may not be able to cost-cut our way to success, but I’m going to give it a go anyway in the absence of any other ideas. In fact, I’m spinning the big wheel in my office right now. And the result of our in-depth top-line analysis to decide our future headcount requirements is…(off-camera ratchet-clicking noise gradually slows to a halt. Flunkey hands Brennan a scrap of paper, which he reads...)...15,000 lay-offs, world-wide…

BILLY TAUZIN: Thanks, Dave, a massive contribution. No issues with transparency there.

(Scoreboard numbers whir round. Wild but now rather forced cheering from the audience. Orchestra plays another couple of quick-time bars of “Happy Days Are Here Again”…)

BILLY TAUZIN: Well, we’ve just got time for Merck’s Dick Clark…

DICK CLARKE: 16,000 lay-offs, all former Scherlings of course. Yippee and good riddance…

BILLY TAUZIN: …who’s going to tell us all about his fair and balanced downsizing process. 16,000 lay-offs, eh? That’s quite an achievement. Thanks a billion, Dick, the industry needs a ruthless, ex-military hand at the tiller like you. (Smoke starts to pour from scoreboard as it struggles to keep up with the number of job losses. Weary and brief refrain of “I’m A Yankee Doodle Dandy” from the audience).

Well, that’s all we’ve got time for from this year’s pharmaceutical industry Uuuuunnnnnemploymethon, friends, but don’t stop those lay-offs. Just remember, if you’re a pharma CEO and you’re looking to brutally and randomly cut your headcount or offshore your operation, then give us a call. Our cost-saving target is 100,000 lay-offs before the end of the decade, and with your help, we’ll make that figure a proud reality.

Good bye friends, God’s speed and haaaaaaaappy downsizing!!!

(Ticker tape and fireworks. Show plays out to strains of “Happy Days Are Here Again”. Camera pans over the audience, which is now a heaving mass of dancing investment bankers wearing party hats and drunkenly forming a conga line. Camera fades as Billy Tauzin grabs an open bottle of champagne and joins the end of the conga…)


Hat-tip to the late, great Spike Milligan, who coined the idea of the “Unemploymethon” back in 1983, to satirise the then Conservative government’s policy of selling off or off-shoring of all of the UK’s industrial infrastructure for the personal enrichment of themselves and their supporters.

Of course, things have changed since then, haven’t they…?