Qualitest

When will they start clearing house down in Alabama in Charlotte? SC and company are draining the life from those plants. Most of the people I know down is trying to leave

 

Why would "they" start cleaning house? This is the most profitable part of Endo.....

 

Really? Do you have any clue about generics and cost per dose? Obviously not from your comment.

Put those plants under an experience pharmaceutical leader and watch the output double. Better yet do a background check on all the leaders and see how many have a pharma background. I bet they can make the hell out of some cars and Cheetos.

 

I knoe people there, the buyout included some job security. And yes, it is the future of Endo.

 

I feel sorry for the employees. I wonder what the turnover rate is there these days?

 

Why? They choose to stay

 

Lol. I see it is still going on. So glad I got a severance from that ass0

 

Not really sure that QT needs a complete house cleaning. As one of earlier posters indicated, there are some people in Ops that have very little pharma experience and that starts at the top with SC. The consultants that SC brought in (LEI) had very little pharma experience and tried to speed things up by cutting QA out of the process. The result of that was predictable - monthly production targets were not being hit and the number of manufacturing deviations went through the roof. That is what happens when you have people with the wrong background working in the pharma industry.

As for what has happened in the Quality organization - that is a travesty to say the least. The new VP of Quality hired about 10 months ago is more of a device person than a finished product person and his lack of experience shows. He also was so terrified of his boss that he was bullied into removing some people in his organization that were very good and were well respected at the site. The new guy has let Ops have too big a say in Quality issues - that is a recipe for disaster.

Bottom line - "cleaning house" is not necessary in Huntsville but removing a few top level people would go a long way to correcting what is going on at that site. It all starts at the top and right now two organizations there are being led by people that are woefully inadequate for the task.

 

Last comment hit it on the head. I've seen some of the smartest and most quality minded people I know get the boot in lieu of morons who follow LEI's instructions. LEI should stand for Lose Everything Immediately!

 

SC spent over 10 million dollars with LEI so far, the ROI on this investment is not even 1% . They turned the company upside down and lost many great people. Toyota or Boeing are not pharma companies, thats all LEI knows. Qualitest is a generic manufacturer, the only thing Lei, SC did, triple the conversion cost and lower the quality of the manufacturing. As long as SC, clueless HR business partners, and legal department in charge, QT is not going forward. I live with this pain every day as management in the company.

 

You know SC is on his way out too. He'll take his half a million parting gift and go FU another company. This is how some of these guys make a living.

 

OHHH, great, we got a new COO from Novartis/Sandoz. He will bring his own people. SC you are definitely out now.

 

The only problem with that is Sandoz/ Novartis are the arm pit of pharmaceuticals. We all know what happend in Nebraska and Wilson NC plants. I forgot they also hired a QA director from Sandoz who could not find her way out of a paper bag. Great background check Hr.

 

SC definitely needs to go but I am not sure that bringing in someone from Novartis is an upgrade. The biggest problem I see in Huntsville is that SC and LEI have worked to make the Quality organization subordinate to Operations and given the recent history of Sandoz/Novartis, I don't see how the new person will improve that. The current head of Quality in Huntsville doesn't have enough backbone or pharmaceutical manufacturing experience to stand up to Ops, so I don't see how the situation will improve in the near future. It will probably take some defining moment (bad 483 or a warning letter) to force Endo to make the changes that are really necessary to fix the situation.

There should be a special place in hell for LEI. Not only have they been paid a boatload of money over the last couple of years with no real improvements, they have removed any quality focus that was present in Tablets and cost many people their jobs in the process. When all the promises that LEI made could not be accomplished, they started a never-ending blame game - Engineering, PharmTech, Planning, Purchasing, Quality, etc. came under attack because the numbers that LEI promised were not being met. Many good people that tried to point out that LEI was presenting bogus ideas were either terminated or demoted just because SC could not admit he had made an error in bringing LEI on in the first place. Step one of righting the ship in Huntsville should be to kick LEI out and, if they insist on bringing in more consultants, at least try to work with a group that understands that the pharmaceutical industry has certain quality requirements that must be followed.

 

The biggest problem at Qualitest is being owned by Endo.

 

"The biggest problem at Qualitest is being owned by Endo."

Not sure that this is just an Endo issue. Sure, Endo has had some less than adequate people put in charge in Huntsville, but they have never owned a manufacturing facility so I think they are learning on-the-fly. I think that a lot of people at QT are responsible for the situation as well.

If QT can survive the learning curve that Endo is going through, staying with Endo may be the best option. Just look at the past - as a privately-held company, QT had stagnated and had some serious compliance issues. When owned by the VC company, there was no commitment to anything except making money for the owners and trying to find a buyer while making as little investment into the site as possible. The Endo situation is still developing but certainly has not been smooth. The other option is being spun off and bought by another company. Having been part of several mergers/acquisitions, it is safe to say that the purchasing company makes all the decisions and they could just purchase QT for their products and take their manufacturing elsewhere.

My opinion (although I am not 100% sold on this) is that Endo is still a good option but they need to fix things at QT very soon. Too many good people have already left, either voluntarily or have been demoted/terminated on less than solid grounds. It is already hard to bring people with a good pharma background to Huntsville and the chaos at QT is known within the industry and is a factor when people think about taking a job there. If Endo does not fix this quickly, it will become impossible to hire the people necessary to fix QT and the death spiral will begin.

 

We would have been long gone if Teva or Watson bought QT. Endo is still the better choice. My fear is what is going to happen when FDA shows up. There are major manufacturing issues in both plants.

 

QT had not been privately owned in years. QT is paying the bills for Endo and Endo is investing in QT. You don't see that happening in the other business units. Sure, there are some spots that need to be tweaked, but for the most part, QT is a money maker thanks to strong leadership.

 

Strong leadership.

 

"QT had not been privately owned in years. QT is paying the bills for Endo and Endo is investing in QT. You don't see that happening in the other business units. Sure, there are some spots that need to be tweaked, but for the most part, QT is a money maker thanks to strong leadership."

Now that is funny. Not just mildly amusing, but really very funny. Anyone who thinks that QT has strong leadership needs to examine what real leadership is. Yes, it is true that QT is making a profit. They could do much better with better leadership. All you have to do is look at what has happened there in the last 2 years or so to demonstrate how poor the leadership really is:

- SC gets rid of AA and places himself as head of operations in Tablets. Not a bad career move for someone that was never more than a project manager before he came to Endo.

- SC allows LEI to bring their brand of crap to the site and tear apart what was working, particularly the focus on Quality that had been built up over the past few years.

- TL is brought in to head the Quality group and seems to be spending more time on scaring his own employees and getting rid of some of them (who were very effective before TL showed up) than on improving the facilities Quality focus. He seems to be carrying out personal vendettas, either his or his bosses, when he gets rid of people.

- After LEI cannot get things to work as they promised, a succession of firings/demotions occurred as other groups were blamed for LEI's lack of success. This includes Engineering, Planning, Supply Chain, Pharm Tech, Quality, etc. Remember, LEI does not have much pharmaceutical experience - why they have been allowed to remain is one of the bigger mysteries on the site.

There are so many more examples that could be given - the overall employee turnover rate at the HSV site, the number of people (manager-level or above) that have either left on their own or been terminated because they dared to speak their minds, the marginal Quality focus over the past several years of the Liquids manufacturing group, why there is such a push to hit the monthly numbers when the warehouse is so full that product cannot be moved into there, etc. This does not speak to strong leadership. This speaks to leaders who are in over their heads and cannot control what is going on around them. They all like their titles at Endo/QT (how many VPs actually work there? - the number is huge), but they cannot actually handle the leadership tasks they are given. There is a difference between leading and demanding and the "leaders" at QT right now are a very demanding group (of others, not of themselves) who are quick to punish and blame others but who bring very little to the table in terms of true leadership.