Black Monday for Sanofi reps

Jim Edwards has the scoop

Dr Max writes.......

http://drugreptime.wordpress.com/

I observe some major changes in the way pharma promotes its products. Interestingly, it is not the result of strategies by marketing and sales departments. The time we live in, the dynamics of health care, growing lay offs, pathological spread of the influence of regulatory and legal, and, of course, apathy, all contributed to this new reality of pharmaceutical sales.

The following is the short list of strategies for better sales by drug reps as of January 2009. I do not like them since they appeal mainly to subcorical parts of doctors brains . I do not promote them either. I just pass them along to you since they work most of the time for others.

1. Find a way to directly pay busy doctors of your choice. Examples: “Speaking” engagements without making them actually speak or perceptorship of who knows what without bothering your docs.

2. Feed them what they like. Make them look forward to the food you bring. Some successful strategies include weekly coffee and danishes , say, every Thursday at 10 AM, appetizers in the afternoon, etc. Your constant presence there is not mandatory. Or bring a lunch from the exact place of your docs choice. Your nonintrusive presence there is a better side dish than a loud talk about your products.

3. Make them remember you for certain peculiar aspect of your life that may be easy to refer to and would keep them regurgitate your stories and give you life advice. Doctors love to give life advice. This works better for charismatic drug reps.

And finally the strategy that works most always and that I encourage: samples. Care to know what, where, how. They sell for you even if you can’t.

Good luck in 2009.

Dr Max

http://www.linkedin.com/in/doctormax

GSK to lose 1000 US Barbies and YAMs

GlaxoSmithKline Europe's largest drugmaker, will eliminate 1,000 sales positions in the U.S. as part of a plan to trim costs.

The jobs will be cut by the end of the year, Claire Brough, a company spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview today. Glaxo said in October 2007 that it would cut jobs in sales, manufacturing and research as part of a plan to save 700 million pounds ($1.12 billion) per year by 2010.

In June, the company said it planned to cut about 350 jobs in research and development in the U.S., U.K. and Italy.

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Pfizer - attention drug reps; incoming!

One hint that Pfizer layoffs will only continue: The company extended its severance-package program, which was due to expire at year's end, through mid-2009, because the drugmaker couldn't treat new layoffs differently from those cut previously.

According to sources close to the action, those layoffs probably would include a large number of sales reps.

FiercePharma has the report.

And Ed at Pharmalot has the story.

Drug samples - just say NO!

A new study suggests that free drug samples, an effective marketing tool for the drug industry, do little to help the poor and may put children’s health at risk.

Researchers from Harvard medical school analyzed data from a federal survey, and found that in 2004 children in the lowest income group weren’t more likely than those in the highest group to get free samples — in part because poor children have less access to doctors overall. And uninsured children were more likely than those with insurance to get the samples.

Free samples are often given for new drugs that have less of a proven safety record than older medicines, one of the study’s authors told the New York Times. And samples sometimes lack specific instructions for children.

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KOL = Super Drug Rep

Are senior doctors who help drug companies sell their drugs independent experts or just drug representatives in disguise, asks Ray Moynihan from the University of Newcastle in Australia, in this weeks BMJ.

Moynihan exposes the reality behind the practice with some candid revelations from industry insiders.

Pharmaceutical companies regularly sponsor leading specialists with "generous fees to peddle influence" and promote drugs to the profession and the public, writes Moynihan.

Drug companies will pay influential doctors up to $400 an hour to act as key opinion leaders (KOLs), and some doctors earn more than $25 000 a year in advisory fees.

Kimberly Elliot, a former award-winning drug company sales representative interviewed (watch the videos) by Moynihan, reveals that drug companies desperately need key opinion leaders in order for doctors to believe what they are saying and prescribe their products, because drug representatives are often not believed. Essentially, she says, key opinion leaders are just salespeople.

So how independent are these doctors who have long term financial arrangements with drug companies?

According to Richard Tiner, medical director at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, although "the work might help to promote a particular medicine" it should be considered payment for work done, and not a bribe. The best antidote to concerns about independence would be more transparency—all company payments to speakers should be routinely disclosed at medical meetings, he adds.

But David Blumenthal, from Harvard University, believes that payments to key opinion leaders are not in the public interest or in the interests of the patients served by these doctors, and calls for a major cutback in industry influence over the medical profession and its education.

In an accompanying head to head, Charlie Buckwell, Chief Executive of the Complete Medical Group and Professor Giovannii Fava, from the University of Bologna, debate whether drug companies' use of medical experts is essential for medical advancement or whether it risks scientific integrity.

Also see BMJ Editor Fiona Godlee's editorial.

For Peter "Pinata" Pitts at DrugWanks

Hat tip: http://placebojournal.com/

A third of Sanofi Aventis' drug reps to go

French drugs group Sanofi-Aventis on Monday confirmed a newspaper report saying that it planned to cut over 700 jobs in France.

Sanofi-Aventis passe à l'étape suivante de son programme de réductions d'effectifs de visiteurs médicaux en France: l'annonce d'un plan social qui se traduira par 700 à 800 suppressions de postes.

According to French daily Les Echos, the group could cut between 700 and 800 positions of sales representatives in France, or one-third of a total workforce of 2,200.

Guess what Merck has called it's 1200 drug rep layoff programme?

"Plan to Win"!

Merck gives the field force little to cheer about

Merck said Monday that it is eliminating 1,200 U.S. sales jobs, a move that comes a week after federal regulators' surprise rejection of Cordaptive.

The cuts come on top of the elimination of about 8,100 positions under the sweeping restructuring plan announced in December 2005.

The new cuts are to be completed by the end of July and amount to nearly 15 percent of the 8,500 sales jobs Merck had at the beginning of 2007, said Amy Rose, spokeswoman for the Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based firm.

More at The Trib

Insider's view: time to blow the whistle, perhaps?