When we hear about companies actually hiring reps, that's news. Given the thousands of sales layoffs over the past several years--and recruiting focused on emerging markets, especially China--staffing up in the U.S. or Europe is out of the ordinary. When that hiring isn't about a new drug launch, we hardly know what to make of it.
That's just what Novo Nordisk ($NVO) has been doing: hiring reps by the hundred in the U.S. First, it was in anticipation of the Tresiba launch that didn't happen in 2013, but last fall, another 350 joined the company. Couple that with 120 new nurse educators, and the Danish drugmaker has expanded its field force by almost 15%.
No one knows this better than North American President Jesper Hoiland, who went out to Las Vegas in December to meet with the new recruits. Just 100 days into his new job running North American operations, Hoiland outlined his goals for 2014, quoting statistics on the cost of diabetes treatment (10% of the entire healthcare system) and growth at Novo Nordisk in North America--from a staff of 65 in the 1980s, when he joined the company, to more than 6,100 today, about 3,500 of whom work in sales and marketing. Read the full report in FiercePharmaMarketing >>