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The decline and fall of the pharma rep
If you're a sales rep who needs another reason to cry into your soup, take a look at Reuters' analysis of the earthquake that's remodeling pharma sales. The short, short version: More sales cuts are yet to come, and smaller sales forces are here to stay.
The old marketing model just doesn't work anymore, Reuters' Ben Hirschler writes. Primary care doctors have less power these days, because payers and their tiered formularies are the real decision-makers. If they won't pay for a branded drug, then prescribing it doesn't do any good. So drugmakers are directing more of their sales firepower toward payers--and because there are far fewer payers than there are doctors, that new focus requires fewer sales people.
Meanwhile, even when reps are sent out to doctors, they're having a tougher time getting in the door. Sales visits in Britain are regularly cancelled, shortened down to just a couple of minutes, and forgotten, IMS Health research shows. Meanwhile, conflicts-of-interest policies in U.S. teaching hospitals and clinics--not to mention some state laws--have barred everything from giveaway items to drug samples, and some medical practices have reacted by putting up "No Reps Allowed" signs.
One U.K. sales rep laid off three times in 11 months tells Reuters, "By the end of my time as a drug rep, there was a definite reluctance to see me, and a resignation to the fact that decisions were less based on clinical evidence and more based on price." Just one tale of woe among many.
- read the Reuters piece
ALSO: A Sanofi-Aventis sales rep has joined the battle about overtime pay for pharma salespeople, alleging in a lawsuit that she and other reps were denied overtime in violation of federal law. Report
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Comments
By Anonymous | Posted 3:30pm | December 17, 2009
There are many factors, besides just the payor situation, that have caused this mass layoff.
Why is it all happening at once? Because everyone follows Pfizer. When they raced to have the biggest sales force, everyone followed to keep up, and the same thing is happening again. If Pfizer doesn't need all these reps, we don't either.
The real problem is the kind of people who have been hired, not the number. If you bring no value to the physician or office other than a canned marketing pitch, they don't need you. Bring value, clinical information and resolution to their problems, and you're welcome in most situations. Until companies understand that (rather than the profitability of their products), you'll continue to see this situation.
By Anonymous | Posted 3:46pm | January 15, 2010
The Merck layoffs are the result of foolish marketing strategies instituted in the late 1980's. At that time Merck was fully represented at all of its accounts with a single nationwide sales force. Then during the span of 3 years, Merck added 3 more identical sales forces with no increase in products. They overwhelmed their accounts with reps thinking they could force market their products into doctors' hands. As it turned out, all Merck did was quadruple their already heavy selling expenses with only incremental sales increases. This waste of resources was overlooked while profit margins were enormous but under recent competitive changes, their "chickens have come home to roost".
Read more: http://www.fiercepharma.com/comment/reply/12172#ixzz0ciD50shf
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