Trump and the government are coming for the pharma industry! Watch, as a new law is passed to negotiate drug pricing for all drugs covered by Medicare Part D. This will cut into profits in a major way. Only the strong will survive. Add on the fact that Takeda is making a huge move into CNS with their acquisition, and their 150 psych dedicated sales force, and you have the makings of a very interesting year for all. Then mix in ASM's doing 2 day field rides every month, unattainable quotas and no real pipeline, and one will start asking themselves is Lundbeck a good place to stay and try to survive? What's your answer? http://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/after-a-missed-connection-cummings-uses-trump-meeting-to-push-medicare-negotiation-plan
If you're a sales rep there is no "safe place" in the future world of pharma. The days of throwing thousands of reps into offices to promote blockbuster drugs for common conditions is over. It's now all about highly targeted orphan drugs and payer access. Companies will therefore invest in highly educated analysts, HEOR specialists, clinical scientists, social media experts, lobbyists etc. vs sales reps that read off a sales aide to overworked physicians. Compared to the 1990s, eventually only 10% of sales reps will be needed. Probably a rational correction, as paying 6 figures to those with only a 4 year degree was highly anomalous.
Best person - Anna of Northera brand team now gone. Well see what happens to this product. Brand team promising resources that are delayed or never come to be More issues with NSC and payer pushback. We go out there each day and present this for the right patient. This drug alone will not support a Neuro sales force in late 2018. Get us another product to help patients that we can promote sometime next year or else many of us will be gone before that
Northera brand team has been and will continue to be a hot mess. Brand director thinks she is the shit and has never led a successful product launch.
It's not the people, it's the drug. This isn't a cancer or cystic fibrosis drug that can save someone's life. It's no better than midodrine, yet we are asking patients/insurers a crazy amount of money for it. And we are not in licensing anything else unless we are 100% sure we can make a profit on it. And guess what, all of pharma, with much better BD resources and more cash are also hunting for these opportunities. Bottem line, much of the neuro sales force will be let go once Onfi LOE approaches. We will not buy something else just so sales reps have something to sell.
Anna is a huge loss and it's pretty clear that many in the neuro home office are jumping for better opportunities. I've never seen so many senior people leave in a company. Quite interesting that Anna said her farewell last Friday and there is nothing coming out from Northera's leadership this week. Now there are 2 spots open on the Northera team. Nobody wants to come in home office to resurrect this drug which was launched with incompetence. It should be retail and available in 24 hours. How about this claim, "Your process takes so long to get medicine that your incompetence has cost people opportunities to maybe be alive.... but they no longer can speak because they never got the chance" It's probably back to the same old shit before, this drug is getting worse coverage as we go. Some plans are making it nearly impossible to get. If that's not a "one and done" for a doctor to jump through hoops to deal with this bullshit, then they must not have a busy practice to continue driving their truck into the river.
I never have been able to get a straight answer as to why this is specialty and mail order other than than the cost. Maybe they should lower the cost and go retail and actually get some prescriptions
DB wanted to price it crazy high. Only way to justify the 600 million price tag to HQ. the northern failure made the decision to bail on the orphan neuro franchise easy. Unfortunately psych can't pay bills, so I have no idea what will happen once Onfi dies.
