Oncology

Please help me understand. We divest our Oncology unit 5 years ago and today we announce we paid $5 billion to acquire one. WTF

 

Wall Street loves it. Stock already down 7% in the premarket.

 

Not all of oncology was sold off. Some R&D remained. Novartis was willing to pay a massive price for what they got and GSK did a smart thing by taking their money. As to Tesaro, it was a good target, but GSK overpaid (just not to the extent Novartis overpaid several years ago).

 

Help me understand here: this company makes one drug, why the $5.1 billion price tag? and does this finally sound the death knell of GSK respiratory?

 

In my opinion, yes, we are at the end of the line as it pertains to our Elipta portfolio. Look, generic Advair will be available shortly. In preparation the company already deemphasized Breo to the extent that Syneos has now taken over its fate. We do not even promote Annuity or Incruse. As it pertains to Anoro and Trelegy, both have been discounted severely in order to gain formulary access. Theses deep discounts and rebates make profitability minimal. It's a volume game and there just ain't enough market. It's not GSKs fault, it's just market evolution. So if you are under the age of 55, I would strongly encourage you to begin looking at other companies and other industries to get involved with. GSK will be a specialty company by 2020. That's just a year away folks. Over the age of 55 and just ride it out for the next year, take a package an retire.

 

It's called pay to play and it was a bargain compared to their stock price at the beginning of 2018.

 

Can GSK do oncology?

GSK has changed and has lost competitive fire. Discounting and rebates is a not how winners win. That's a race to the bottom.

Why would an oncology rep work somewhere that doesn't pay bonuses to their reps when so many competitors are shelling out top dollar for reps with track records and relationships?

I don't understand unless a major sea change is coming. I'd expect 75% of Tesaro reps to depart in the first 18 months. Then, who can fill those spots. Primary care will feel like they can do it only to step in and find themselves struggling mightily.

Can Glaxo recruit outside talent after how they cast off the talent they had in oncology in one fell swoop?

Will Glaxo be able to pay up for the talent and resources they need? May that's the signal the $5B price tag for Tesaro is supposed to send. Time will tell but whoever said 2020, Glaxo will be a specialty company is smoking crack. They will make the move but seem a few years away to getting there.

 

There is NO WAY that GSK will be able to be competitive in the oncology space. GSK is a primary care company.

They are trying to known as a biologics company with sales reps that have primary care sales mindsets. The Benlysta reps are not as bad as the Nucala reps, but still would not be able to compete with reps from any other company specialty sales force. Most of the good reps left a long time ago, and the few good Benlysta reps that are left are about to retire. The Nucala reps suck and are getting their asses kicked daily. The Nucala reps think they are better than the respiratory reps, but they are not. They are stepping on each other and getting the rest of us kicked out of offices yet walk around like they are so important. I have never met one that can actually sell. All they do is drop off food and talk about the competitors. Now that there is another product out, they are getting kicked out of offices and wanting to join our lunches.

No one with any self respect would come to this company to sell oncology products. Oncology reps are some of the best in the pharma business. They would never come to a company that is ran like a primary care sales company. They would never come to a company that does not pay on sales numbers, but bonus is based on how much you suck up to your boss and KPIs. They would never work for a GSK manager because our managers are a joke and know nothing about treating sales reps like adults. GSK treats all sales reps in the company like primary care sales reps, no matter what division. GSK does not pay sales reps well and would not be able to afford the salaries of oncology reps.

What is GSK going to do, give oncology drugs to the biologics team? The Nucala reps already have such over inflated egos and are laughed at daily by my offices. No one likes them and continue to tell me they are not welcomed in the offices because they suck. Benlysta team prob won't be here much longer, and will be next to be cut. Vaccines has enough going on and are having their own problems.

GSK let go of a lot of people to buy this company and are going to screw it up like everything else they do. I can't wait to leave this company. I guess until then at least I have a good view of this shit show that is know as GSK!

 

the answer to your question is GSK and more specifically Andrew Witty made a strategic blunder selling the oncology business unit. Andrew W was a disaster as a CEO and set GSK back over a decade. Thankfully we are getting back on track. We got left behind in the industry thanks to Witty.

 

What problems are happening with the vaccine unit? It’s probably THE one bright spot for the company right now!

 

Sour grapes because you were fired? Sir Andrew was the best CEO in the history of UK business. His decision to sell oncology was one of the most brilliant in modern times.

 

I couldn’t agree more. Wish we could bring back the big three of Andrew, Moncef, and Patrick to return to the glory days.

 

Yes and the one bright spot has completely screwed up the launch of Shingrix. Huge shortages with majority of folks unable to receive second vaccination within 6 month window. Lawsuits if these individuals develop shingles.

 

Exactly.

The ONE bright spot....Still, GSK screwed it up.

Like I said....No Oncology Reps are coming to GSK. No good sales reps are coming to GSK. No one worth a damn is coming to GSK.

We are the laughing jokes of the industry. No one is going to ever hire us. GSK on our resumes has us black listed!

 

For $5.1 B they could have hired some Mexicans to build a 30 foot wall through the Mojave desert

 

This has to be a joke. GSK doesn’t need a trio of old fogies.

It needs new drugs and new leadership that can navigate today’s market landscape, not the pre-digital market landscape when Netscape was a huge tech company, reps were trading up from flip phones to Blackberry phones and your large hospitals started making formularies and pathways.

Can you imagine a group of old fogies sitting around a conference table talking about “Back in my day, we did...and it worked out just fine”.

It looks like you got some new blood coming into leadership. It will be a rocky start as all transitions tend to be but let’s see if you can catch up to the rest of the industry. Stop looking to folks who aged out for help though.

 

Experienced heme onc medical here. I was willing to have a look and went to interview. It was a fiasco. Not a single person attended my presentation, just one via Skype. Two interviewers didn’t show up at all. Just one individual actually interviewed me. I couldn’t get out of there quick enough. Worse, my expenses for the trip were submitted 3 months ago, no sign of reimbursement yet. Stay away.

 

I presume you attended a GSK interview and you are talking about that experience. If so, Wow. Things are screwed up beyond what we even understand.

 

GSK is famous for it's acquisitions that amount to nothing. Back in the day we had Glaxo Dermatology.

They sold all of it and got out of the Derm Business. Let's see now... Anybody remember that little purchase called Stiefel? Paid big bucks for that, and then got rid of it... It is amazing how GSK is still in business.

 

So Hoos brought you in to interview but didn’t bother to show up to your seminar?