It means the company has no products to sell and will focus on two idiotic pipeline drugs. It also means that they completely screwed the people who have been working here for years with the promise that the future is bright with stock options that are worth $0.00. It also means that our management clearly hasn't a clue on how to run a pharma company.
It means you are now working for Pernix - a company 99.9% of folks in pharma probably never even knew existed. I just read the posts on their board and it sounds like they are as pleased about their chosen profession as all of you are (and have been). It means that your senior leadership will probably now sleep peacefully for the first time in a very, very long time. Capiche?
Good afternoon everyone! I am a rep at Pernix, and was just in this same position two years ago as you are now. Pernix acquired the company I worked for (Hawthorn Pharmaceuticals) and also purchased Somaxon around that same time. The goal, as communicated to us, was to sell the Hawthorn cough and cold products seasonally and to sell Silenor (from Somaxon) as our main product. At that time (January 2013), Pernix had inherited around 80 Hawthorn reps to go with roughly 40 reps that were already with Pernix from before. It was communicated to us that there would be cuts, but the amount was unsure at the time. They ended up trimming the full roster to around 80 total reps. We knew it would happen as they were forthright about it all. Still was unfortunate. The first year was very challenging, people came and went, upper management changes, products added/taken away. There wasn't a whole lot of stability. I remember when the stock had sunk all the way down to less than $2. Then Doug Drysdale took over in late January 2014. It's not my intention to mislead you, as I have been there before so I want to be honest BC not a single one of you deserves any undue stress. Doug has turned everything around. He added great upper management personnel, made everything much more transparent for the reps, added other key products to move us out of cough/cold and into specialty, and things couldn't be better. I know someone mentioned earlier on here that no one knows Pernix exists, but our customers know. We don't have a huge amount of reps (around 100 total). We are like a family. You can go scout our board and come to the conclusion that people are miserable, but the truth is, that you don't really see a whole lot of activity on our board BC the few that complain are typically disgruntled former employees that were either let go a long time ago or reps that didn't stick around during the tough times in 2013. I said before that transparency is important. We don't know everything of course but on the things that matter the most, our management is clear with us. It was communicated to us that there are roughly 100 reps with ZOHYDRO at your company, and that you will be joining Pernix, along with several other personnel. I'm sure this has been communicated to you in some way. We were also told that there would be no cuts. We are growing, so cuts are extremely unnecessary especially when the reps here already have a full bag. You are experts of ZOHYDRO, and you are valued. It's easy to worry about your stock with zogenix, and I don't know what to tell you about that. But as I said before, it wasn't just a year ago that our stock was under $2. Doug and our upper management have taken great care of us and I don't see any reason why they wouldn't do the same for you as well. So please don't stress. This is cafepharma so a lot of stuff you will read is negative, so I just wanted to give clarity for anyone legitimately concerned.
Thank you to the Pernix rep who posted on this board. Your insight was helpful in knowing where you came from to now. If you would, please give some insight to the following: The payscale for reps at Pernix, Company cars or allowance, vacation accrual, Healthcare options, 401K-co contributes or not. Also, who do you currently call on? Our reps make between $80-95/yr, company car, 15days vacation, no 401k match and we call on pain docs, IM & some neuros/rheums
Happy to help provide clarity on any questions you have as long as I have an answer. Payscale before new management came on board a year ago was $40k base with monthly commission which basically ended up anywhere between 2k and 5k for typical reps. Some reps made upwards of 12k monthly in commission, and even more on some months. After new management took over, we all got a base bump to 50k around April 2014. Then after they bought Treximet, they did away with monthly commission payout in August 2014 for a quarterly quota bonus structure and bumped base up to 65k for everyone. Quarterly bonus paid on quota which fluctuates by territory. If you hit 100% quota, you get $6250 for the quarter. Any more than that, then you get more bonus but at different percentages per product. Basically translates to around 90k base/commission yearly assuming you hit 100% quota. That number will fluctuate obviously per individual. Possibility of yearly raises too. No company cars but I know management has said it's a possibility in the future but there's no timetable there that I know of. They give car allowance at $625 per month, paid semi-monthly on paycheck (312.50 on each check). Only downside is that it is taxed so it equates to maybe $500-550 per month when looking at what you actually take home. I think the real downside to this overall is that territory size doesn't factor in anything. A lot of the reps cover very large territories, and some not as large, but everyone gets the same though the wear/tear on the cars is not the across the board. I think upper management has been trying to figure up something different but I cannot confirm that. Vacation package is being updated currently so we will get info on that soon. I couldn't even tell you how many we get right now. I know it equates to almost 1 day per month of vacation time that accrues. But I don't remember how many we can have in the bank, maybe 15 days... Also we get 4 personal days, and 5 sick. But they are gonna revise this pretty soon. Health insurance right now is paid by Pernix but you can elect to upgrade to a better plan at your own expense. Company does not pay for family, so that comes out of pocket. They are looking into changing insurance package soon, so I'm unsure what that will be like. 401k match 100% for first 3% contributed (really nice!) also have a stock purchase plan and upper management has given us stock options as a reward before as well. Traditional holidays off and entire Christmas Eve-new year off. We call on mainly neuro, psych, IM, GP/FP, and OB/GYN. I would say it's 30-35% neuro, 25-30% psych, 25-30% FP/gp/IM, 10% OB/GYN. And then a small amount of other specialities like rheum. Sorry for being so wordy on the reply, just trying to give as much info as I can. While these are what things are like for us, I can't be certain that it will be all the same for you, but I'd imagine it would. This really is a special company and I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea of Pernix so I'm happy to help answer your questions. I'm sure in due time all of these details will be provided to you through management or HR but I know how it is, getting those details are very important.
Thank you again for your insight. Can you add anything around the car allowance? Does it include gas or a mileage expense? Also do you use a company credit card or do they allow you to use a personal card for expenses-lunches etc?
Yes....thanks for your answers. We had a cc this afternoon, which answered some questions and you added some insight to others that weren't asked. We are looking forward to joining Pernix and hopefully giving ZER its chance to shine.
The car allowance is deposited straight into bank account on same stub as base salary. It's basically all the extra we get for wear/tear. With that said, the company also pays us gas expenses. We do expenses twice a month (15th and last day of month) where we expense whatever business related necessary expenses we incur (gas, educational access lunch or breakfast with an office, hotel stays, airline fees, whatever within company guidelines) We do not have a company card so it comes out of whatever card you use for expenses. They are really good about paying our expenses back quickly. Usually have them approved and paid within a week after submitting them. We do have a limit on how much we can spend for educational access, which is currently around $600 per month.
I assume you probably heard from Rick or maybe even Doug. Rick is considered the 2nd in command, and is a great guy. A real advocate for his reps. Just stay positive, this is all gonna be just fine. As they may have said, you all will still have ZohydroER, and will pick up Silenor as well which very well could add a new dynamic in your offices and bring more value. I don't believe any of us will have zohydro. If so, it would be very few. They want us to focus on treximet, Silenor, and khedezla so you could easily rationalize that we don't need to add anything else to our current bag. It's been nice chatting with you all. I'll check back again in case there are any other questions you might have. Whenever it all becomes official, don't be afraid to reach out to any of us in the field. We are all on the same team and are more than happy to help in any way we can.
Thanks for sharing all those information. Since you are covering Treximet, I am wondering why 6 months into the relaunch, Treximet weekly Rx still going down? what the company has done to ensure a recovery and do you think that is doable and when? Thanks vm.
That's easy to answer actually. We've had it for 6 months now, yes. When we got it, the rx levels had been declining for well around 2 years. We managed to get that decline to slow down and even stop for a while. What helped that was the fact we had started promoting it again, and were providing co-pay assistance and just getting treximet back into prescriber's thoughts again. The problem though, GSK had many more reps, larger area covered for treximet and we only have 100 reps from east to west. Plenty of areas are still uncovered so rx loss is still bleeding in those areas where promotion of treximet hasn't existed in several years. Pernix is definitely trying to find ways to generate some form of access into those areas but none work better than having reps. Another issue of the current decline this year is due to high deductible insurance which is very much expected. Management went as far as to even lower our actual quotas this quarter BC a loss was expected. They are really projecting growth to begin later this month and April. Lastly, as cliche as it sounds, samples. We haven't had samples. Our providers are vocal with all of us about how much they want the samples, and in migraine market, samples mean everything. Our hands have been tied on that. Management has improved managed care coverage, and have told us that samples are coming but it's definitely holding us back in our efforts. Any rep will tell you that. The relpax reps have a big edge due to them having samples. It's frustrating. We needed samples 6 months ago. I understand that they are very close to being in our hands but we will see when that is when it happens. To me, the sample thing and lack of bigger rep count has contributed most to decline. I expect it will stabalize when we get samples.
I don't work for either company, just an interested rep somewhere else. But I'd like to say...wow. What a great dialogue. This is what cafepharma used to be before idiots destroyed a good thing. Awesome job, Pernix rep. I wish we could have a place to go to have a good discussion, positive, truthful, beneficial. Our industry, quite frankly, sucks now. I've been in 15 years and have seen the demise. I still love it because of what we do and provide, but things have changed. I wish Zogenix reps good luck...sounds like you'll be fine. And continued success to Pernix. And again, having been in a similar situation, having the Pernix rep come on to reassure you is awesome. I wish he/she wasn't anonymous because they deserve personal accolades.
