Abbott Diabetes Care

Discussion in 'Abbott' started by Anonymous, Dec 18, 2009 at 6:59 PM.

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  1. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    What is up with the management at this company? I am a fairly new rep with over 10 years experience and I have never seen so much mis management in my life. Why is the talent here so inexperienced?
     

  2. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Haha!!! You fool! You have 10 years of experience and you're just NOW getting into meter sales??? Then on top of it you come on CP to complain?? I would have just kept my mouth shut as YOU look like an idiot. 10 years experience..and now a NEW meter rep! Hahahahahahahaaaaaaa!!!
     
  3. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    I think you are the fool. This can be a stepping stone into real device if you are intelligent but by your response you missed the "intelligence boat". You sound like a medisense reject that is just happy to have a paycheck. Grow up little man and act like you have some hair on your balls.
     
  4. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    No, post #2 is correct. Meter sales is not a great stepping stone into medical device. I'm a recruiter and to be honest, meter sales is viewed as OTC more than medical device or equipment. You might have a chance getting into pump sales, but that's about it. Most of the reps I have placed with the meter companies (or similar) are sales people that have no experience, or very limited. If you truly have 10 years of medical sales experience, you probably should have seeked a position in specialty pharma/biotech or OR. You mentioned that management was weak and the sales force was very inexperienced...well, you just joined them. Don't get all emotional and snap at a poster on here that basically told you the truth. He was correct, you do look like a fool especially with your "stepping stone" post.
     
  5. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Well, if you are a recruiter you are not very good at your job. I was a meter reps for years and used it to get into device sales so you are wrong. A little knowledge for you all, a recruiter is not a good job, it is someone who can not get a good job! Speciality pharma is a no different that anyother pharma job, I did tht for 7 years so you can blow that arguement out of your ass. Only difference is that speciality thinks their shit does not stink, alot like recruiters, but they wait in lobbies for hours to talk for 1 minute - great job. You are wrong and I am proof! One other thing, biotech is pharma with stock options. If you are a recruiter, and I doubt it, I feel sorry for the people who actually believe what you say. Like I said, I am now in device and management iat ADC is a joke - but you have no idea what it takes to sell strips so, again, you have no idea of what you are talking about.
     
  6. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Any headhunter worth his salt would not be on cafepharma. This is just another ADC hack who thinks selling pharma is more prestigous than selling meters. In fact, this idiot sounds like management material at ADC - not a compliment you fool!!
     
  7. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    No leadership. If ADC was based in Chicago the team in charge would have all been fired, the whole lot of them. Very lucky the business is so small and so far away or Miles White would have lined the whole management team up and fired them one by one. At minimum, he would have placed his McKinsey hitmen in Alameda to sniff out why the crappy leadership is creating a crappy culture yielding crappy results. The only reason Miles could possibly tolerate this is that it is not even on his radar screen. Not on his radar screen is scary as it probably means dump the business or as you see the net margin goals increase it means harvest the business.
     
  8. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    How's the training department? Anyone I should be concerned about? Are they cooperative?
     
  9. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    There has not been any good training since the managed care guy that used to be here did the third tier selling and understanding managed care training. I think he was the only guy I have met here that really understood our business.

    All I can say about current training is LOL.
     
  10. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    I agree with that. I also thought that the guy from the Midwest was good too. Big guy...can't remember his name. He was realistic and at least knew the business too. Made it more bearable with his sense of humor. I think he left last year. Since then, it has been a bunch of stiffs.
     
  11. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Poor Leadership at Abbott Diabetes Care

    In the past 8 months, there were layoffs made at both the Alameda, CA and Witney, UK facilities, encompassing a wide array of departments. The most recent one happened in the second week of January 2010.

    One of the biggest challenges facing ADC is that its technology is not at par with the competition. For example, its continuous glucose monitoring system, Navigator, is yet to make money and the current version is still undergoing a myriad of design changes. Just take a look at the FDA website and see how many changes have been made to the Navigator since it was approved. Likewise, the FreeStyle test strips use a chemistry that is the subject of an FDA and Health Canada public health notification, since the GDH-PQQ enzyme which ADC uses can cause highly elevated glucose readings. This is all occasioned by a very poor R&D leadership, whose VPs lack vision and market acumen. Rather than focusing on fixing issues that address complaint trends, the technical operations team are not trailblazers, but simply follow Bayer and Lifescan.

    The Regulatory Affairs and Clinical Affairs leadership is also very weak, with a current leader that never had any clinical trials background and no regulatory experience in IVDs. In just one year, senior regulatory professionals and an RA manager have left that department, dismayed at the favoritism and poor management fromt he top. The Quality Systems leadership is also equally pathetic. The environment is very fissiparous, with leaders being hired from within and promoted from one department to another, having no background at all in their new responsibilities. Such promotions are occasioned by cronyism and connections more than skill set competencies.

    Mr. White needs to seriously take a look at this division and bring in some McKinsey folks to assess its deficiencies. Should anyone from Abbott Corporate read this, please just respond and provide an e-mail and I will be more than happy to contact them directly to discuss my perspective.
     
  12. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Training???!???! Training is the least concern at this division. Not because it's competent, incompetent, relevant, a waste of time, etc. It's more like if the Titanic's stern starts to rise as the bow goes under, are you gonna ask about the menu for tomorrow's lunch?
     
  13. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Recycled Leadership at Abbott Diabetes Care

    ADC has become less competitive from a product development standpoint since most of its devices are "me-too" products. There is no innovation in their current products since they merely copy what Bayer, Roche, and Lifescan have. I blame this on poor leadership, given the fact that most of the senior managers at ADC are merely recycled from other Abbott divisions. They just move VPs around and as a result, there is no new blood. The leadership at R&D is dismal and I am surprised that they have not fired the two pompous VPs who were hand-me downs from Therasense and Medisense. Just look at the Navigator which took too long to get approval in the US and even now has no reimbursement and is still being continually upgraded. In reality, this device is still not ready for primetime. I reckon that Miles White is just ashamed to admit that ADC is in a moribund state since this was his first acquisition as Abbott CEO. No doubt that they paid too much for Therasense, based on the "intangible" value of the Navigator, which still has to see profit.

    At the end of the day, Miles White or La Presidente Madam Heather Mason needs to purge ADC's senior management and bring in new blood from outside of Abbott. I would recommend starting at R&D, Regulatory Affairs, and Quality!
     
  14. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Re: Recycled Leadership at Abbott Diabetes Care

    Add to that Sales, Marketing, Contracts and Pricing, the list goes on.
     
  15. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Re: Poor Leadership at Abbott Diabetes Care

    You NEED to send a note directly to Miles White. He is not aware of what is going on in Alameda and how poor the leadership is but deserves this insight so ACTION can be taken. Send it anonymously if you must...BUT SEND IT.
     
  16. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Re: Recycled Leadership at Abbott Diabetes Care

    SALES and MARKETING at ADC is the "worst in class" in diabetes. If sales understood the channels and the competitive landscape and if marketing understood patient behavior they would be driving R&D to develop products that were relevant in the market. Instead we have products that lag our competitors that even have the ability to launch simple innovation that the pharmacist, CDE, HCP, and patient love. Mini, Bayer Colors, Roche drum, all have been sales/marketing driven. Hate to say it but our sales VP is a fake and the marketing team is just attempting to collect a paycheck and survive until Miles White rotates in the next President. THis is not R&D's fault - it is the lack of leadership and direction from sales and marketing team.
     
  17. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Dysfunctional Leadership at Abbott Diabetes Care

    I have never seen a biotech organization that is more dysfunctional than Abbott Diabetes Care (ADC) and if there are any MBA candidates out there who are interested in a case study for their thesis, ADC is a very good candidate. Here are some interesting tidbits:

    (1) Years after Abbott acquired Therasense, the Operations team were still packing kits into shipping boxes that said Therasense on it. The VP of Operations was just a stingy fool who was more interested in cost savings, waiting for his retirement, and in getting his daughter an internship (and subsequently a fulltime job) at ADC.
    (2) VPs are just recycled around--- After Florentino left, they brought in R Hance, who was recycled from Vascular, and after just a year, was recycled back to Vascular, and H Mason was brought in as Pres and she came from another Abbott division as well. The ineffective VP of QA was just recycled to the eyecare division, and the VP of Regulatory and Clinicals came from Vascular, right after that division got a warning letter. (Surprisingly, he heads clinicals even if he never had a clinical trial background.) They had a Brit for a manufacturing VP and he was booted out and a someone from nutrition was brought in. And what is there to say about the Sales and Marketing leadership? It's a revolving door!
    (3) After Navigator was launched, they just realized that there was no reimbursement for this product. Why would patients (or Medicare) pay for this expensive device when there are cheaper alternatives (i.e. meters and strips)?
    (4) When the FDA sent a safety warning on the GDH-PQQ technology, which FreeStyle uses, Bayer and Lifescan acted swiftly and changed their enzymes to a safer alternative. As of this writing, I checked ADCs website and they still do not have a solution to this public health risk. I am sure that Bayer and Lifescan are taking advantage of this and are slowly eating market share from ADC's FreeStyle strips.
     
  18. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Yes we are. We are also taking advantage of the Freestyle lite Vs Freestyle marketplace confusion, lack of managed care, bullshit Copay card that sells patient info, and the fact that ADC Reps. dont work and if they do show up at the office they just drop off meters and walk away without talking with anyone :)
     
  19. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Hey Kettle, is that you?
     
  20. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Re: Dysfunctional Leadership at Abbott Diabetes Care


    Who is this dipshit?? They should have tried to keep the Therasense name, it was respected while Abbott had a reputation for running Medisense that was nothing but a industry joke. To say that there is not reimbursement for sensors is incorrect - more and more payors are on board for this technology everyday but the mistake ADC made was not to partner with a pump company. ADC thought that 20 overrated meter reps could sell against Medtronic without any clinical personal. Medtronic will win that battle all day. The studies are there proving the benefit of sensors and payors do pay for it but ADC does not have the knowledge to sell this technology. To reference that meters and strips can give the same results as a sensor is laughable, you should try to read some studies. JDRF had one published in the New England Journal of Medicine that erases all doubt of the benefits of this technology. The author of the above post knows that ADC is not making good decisions but is not too bright, might be a ADC manager.