Bonuses

Should home office read anything into the lack of questions from the field on the 12:00 call today with DR? Seems to me that the drug is selling very well even though we didn't hit our corporate goal. It would be nice to see the quarterly bonuses a bit higher. I like many of the things the company is doing for the sales force...in the end though it is all about the bonuses. If another launch opportunity comes my way with generous stock options I will probably consider a move. Your thoughts?

 

I've been called by 3 recruiters already. matching bases with uncapped bonuses. One in retina. Not interested n any of them but will listen when recruiters call. I think our best days of bonuses are behind us now. I can go anywhere and make 4k a quarter. It will be interesting to see what they do to gaols when we get DME.

 

4K a qtr?? Thought you guys were rolling in it

 

No. Selling lots of drug but goals are very aggressive. Some are going to sell 5,000,000 worth of drug and make the minimum payout of 2,500 this quarter. I guess because we (and the company) did very well last year they figure that we can suck it up for a year.

 

This place is disappointing. Regeneron is a great biotech company for it's products, pipeline, and to invest in (at your own risk)...unfortunately, not a great place to work unless you are a scientist in a laboratory.

Len is all about the science and despises commercial (as he views sales as a necessary evil). Len believes that the drugs sell themselves and why give "order takers" any credit in the way of bonus and stock incentive...not to mention the 4-cylinder cars that barely get you by on the highways (seriously, proceed with caution when going on an on-ramp trying to get some acceleration-wtf!).

Do you really think Len will pay out large bonuses for DME? Highly doubtful. The stock options, bonus, health insurance, car, are all below industry standard. There will be turnover in commercial if leadership continues with operating a sales and reimbursement force on the cheap. Take a look around at other biotechs that are mentioned in the same breath as Regeneron...bonuses are higher, ESPP, stock options above 500 shares, decent car, etc. There will be more competitive emerging companies in retina and beyond in 2014 that place a high value on sales teams.

On top of all of the sub-par compensation, the culture screams primary care and is a reflection of leadership's distrust and penchant for scolding people. Micromanagement is unnecessary with a talented and seasoned specialty sales force. If leadership took a closer look, morale is very poor and they have virtually eliminated incentives to increase sales. Perhaps if we took a serious look at improving compensation and culture, it would mean the difference of meeting and beating sales forecast versus coming up short in the past quarterly earnings? Right now, you guys make it tough to go the extra mile when commercial sales is not valued. You get what you pay for, or don't pay for...give people more skin in the game and they will bust threw a wall for you. Last year's bonus was a once in a lifetime deal and also based on a mistake that Len will not make again.

 

That pretty much sums it up! Hope someone in the home office sees this and takes it seriously. They will never get real, honest feedback from surveymonkey following meetings because the IP addresses are listed with the comments and they know what address each of us has.

In any case, I think this thread has run it's coarse. Hopefully, things will improve some. Now, off to capture 100% of the w-AMD and ME following CRVO market as expected!

 

Take into account other pharma/biotech gigs, this doesn't suck

 

This is a solid post with very good points. Nobody is going the extra mile except the people in line for Regeneron cup. There are several territories making $2500 multiple quarters this year. I think the bonuses will be terrible even when DME comes and that's still over a year away. I hope someone from HO reads this: With shit bonuses like this what do you think we will all be doing until DME comes out? Ask yourselves that.

Oh and setting us all up to fail this JCAHPO cert is an absolute fail. Thanks for that.

 

This is my 1st time posting to Cafepharma although I admit to reading it every once in a while. I want to make a few points that I believe are important and that I have mentioned myself or have heard others discuss at the NSM’s…


Retina Specialists are less concerned with maximizing profits than they are about minimizing losses. We do not sell on the spread and they do not buy because of it. One unreimbursed vial of EYELA requires 24 reimbursed vials at ASP + 4.2% to recover the loss. Not to mention the man hours involved. I don’t care what the opinion leaders tell senior leadership when they meet in the home office or at ASRS etc., minimizing risk is a way of life for most practices and when in doubt they will go with Avastin. And once Avastin is given, and the patient’s vision begins to improve, they will continue to receive Avastin. We will never get every new start!

There is a risk of IOI with Avastin due to the compounding issue. That is a given. However, the number of cases and the severity are not enough to argue that it should not be an option. To be sure, when someone losses an eye because Avastin was compounded incorrectly – that is a tragedy. In reality, for the number of injections given this is probably about as rare as our (or Lucentis’) rate of IOI. One might even argue that drawing up an Avastin in a controlled lab environment is safer than having a tech draw up EYELA in a hallway nurse’s station with people talking (spraying saliva) & running around everywhere.


If all 3 products cost the same to the physician, patient and system, Regeneron would not need a sales force. The drug is that good. But this is not the case and MSs and RBMs work very hard to help identify patients whose insurance will cover this drug. I would guess that at launch Regeneron without a sales force would have sold 10,000,000 worth of drug by the end of 2011. But as reimbursement lagged and offices had billing problems and questions, a sales force was required to calm the nerves of our customers. Our customers talk a lot between one another and there is a meeting somewhere every weekend. It would not have taken long for them to stop using EYELA out of fear of non or under-reimbursement. We are needed!


Several RDs and home office have said that last year was a once in a lifetime experience. This is not the case. While some launches do not go well, others do. If this was a once in a lifetime thing then sales people would not be so quick to make a job change to launch a new product. There is always a risk when launching a product and companies balance that risk with the chance of a great monetary reward. And many times the best, most successful will leave for a launch opportunity because there is much to be gained. They are hard workers and risk takers. That is what drives a great company. Show me someone who has been selling the same product for 15 years and I’ll show you someone happy with their base pay! Regeneron needs to pay better if they want the best!


The DME approval will be huge for the company’s sales. How they structure the bonuses those 1st few quarters will tell me everything I need to know about future new product launches. If we double our sales but our quotas are also doubled, there will be no reason to believe management would share in the profits of future launches with the commercial side. And I will not risk going to a new product when there is little chance of hitting the jackpot again. We need to have something to look forward to.


Sorry for the random thoughts but I hope Len and others begin to appreciate what it is like outside of Tarrytown.

 

Several RDs and home office have said that last year was a once in a lifetime experience. This is not the case. While some launches do not go well, others do. If this was a once in a lifetime thing then sales people would not be so quick to make a job change to launch a new product. There is always a risk when launching a product and companies balance that risk with the chance of a great monetary reward. And many times the best, most successful will leave for a launch opportunity because there is much to be gained. They are hard workers and risk takers. That is what drives a great company. Show me someone who has been selling the same product for 15 years and I’ll show you someone happy with their base pay! Regeneron needs to pay better if they want the best!

I agree totally with your post and specifically with what I re posted above. You know what the worst thing is? They went through a rigorous hiring process trying to find great reps. Reps that wanted to take this risk for the possible reward yet now Regeneron acts like we should just change gears and not expect to earn bonuses that are completely in line with the success of the drug. They wanted people like us and they got them but now they want us to be happy and motivated with these terrible, primary care bonuses. It's a shame. I hope they do read this stuff. I want this company to a better place to work.

 

We've got the science part down, now we just need to work on the people part of the organization. Agree with the previous posts regarding opportunities to make this a better place to work from a culture and compensation perspective. We will likely be part of Sanofi before that happens.

 

Please shut up. All of you.

 

Wow, Len actually does read cafe pharma.

 

I was thinking the same thing!

 

Len is such an asshole....

 

He may be to the reps at his company, but he certainly is generous to himself!!!

 

Great looking and Rich is Len! Ok...well just rich.

 

Toxic ass culture in commercial and cheap fucks. Poor Leaders and Big Pharma mentality. Please Sanofi take us out of our misery.

 

just passing through-- funny stuff you reps bitch about. We were just talking about this last week in our office. We never see our rep in Pittsburgh and question why we even support the company.

You guys hardly work and want big dollars for minimal effort. Rep greed for so little you do everyday. laughable.

 

This is what you Genentech people do to bitch about your competition? Please!