Decade of decadence

Its sad seeing these layoffs.

I've seen a lot at this company.

The pre-2005 era was a time when I went to Arrowwood and witnessed married people carrying on together, when managers rewarded reps who used lying to gain access to customers, when managers and trainers lied to reps about the risks and benefits of our meds who passed those exaggerated claims on to customers.

In our arrogance, we grew larger and larger and never saw an end to it. We felt invincible. We felt immune to our Achilles heel-patent expiration. We knew our weakness was exposed and just assumed that management would work things out. The geniuses who made us number 1 would find a solution.

Then the long slow decline - corruption at the highest levels. McKinnell rips off the entire company, what a wretch. The chicken boss now in charge of pharma, what a joke. The stock falls from $50 a share, never to return to that lofty height. Failed R&D and the loss of inline products. Worst of all, the dehumanization and destruction of people. Now, we get the idea to fix the culture that every system in place was designed to create.

This is hell folks. Eternal suffering for the many grievous sins of our past. Or, maybe it's just a purgatory where those wrongs will one day be atoned and we will be freed.

Many who were fired had nothing to do with this. It doesn't matter. It's not personal. Don't blame your manager. They are a cog in the machine. They are a part of the system, not a change agent. Change agents don't last long here. The system puts them down like stray dogs.

How many people have stayed silent instead of promoting change? I see it all the time. Someone gets up at every meeting to show us a new way or new spreadsheet for analyzing our reports but nobody is allowed to question the report itself.

We will pay the price until our corporate arrogance is gone and humility takes over. I'm afraid we have a long way to go still.

 

The dedade of decadence was the result of a scorched earth policy.

Pfizer's success has been through the Leveraged Buyout strategy, because Pfizer itself is incompetent. I can only think of two drugs that Pfizer has created ... and I'm not even sure about those. .. Viagra and Zoloft. Everything else has been "bought" .. and then the acquired company is systematically eliminated. The drug that put Pfizer on the market, Lipitor, was bought. Celebrex and Zyvox ... bought. Buddy of mine who's retired from Pfizer this year ... said Lyrica was bought. The entire Wyeth portfolio, bought.

At some point, there will only be one Branded Pharma company left ... Pfizer ... and it will die a slow death.

 

Finally, a cogent argument.

Sales: Look at all of the General Business Managers and SVPs of sales from JUST 5 YEARS ago who were terminated. I mean, outside of WoodU Carl, where are they? Most, I heard, were walked out by security.

R&D: $70 billion in a 10 year period brought nothing, except maybe Vfend. Read that number again to get the full effect. 70....billion.

With the exception of 18 year old Viagra, the Wyeth, King, Warner Lambert, and Pharmacia portfolio contribute 90% of our company's sales.

Personnel: the stupid reach and frequency strategy of the late 90s doomed us to fail. I came to Pfizer from PD and simply could not believe the laziness and dishonesty exhibited at all levels. The first national meeting reminded me of spring break in Cancun. The trainers at the Arrow wood training center acted as if they were RDs of some coed dorm, and I remember 2 or 3 getting caught having affairs with trainees. The DMs and RMs were atrocious: arrogant, poorly trained, and fairly lazy. Their WHOLE mission was to make sure their reps spent their budget, dropped off their samples, and did dinner programs.

The Pfizer I used to compete with in the early 90s didn't seem to be like this. So I feel for you people that never got to experience THAT Pfizer, cuz the one that Ive worked for for 14 years does not seem to have much of a future.

One more thing: I made the cut, and have been retained. But I am no fool. I know whats coming next year or the year after.

 

Good points. Funny thing is that the New York crowd really believe they are the best and brightest. They do not understand that most people do not want to like in that shithole New York.

They good news is you do not have to circle the drain with pfizer. There is life after pfizer and it is quite good actually. There used to be a time when pfizer was filled with lions...not just sheep are left...

 

I see my typos above before someone jumps me...

 

where are those SVP's now?

 

The downfall started when the COX 2 technology imploded followed by the debacles of Inspra, Caduet and Zmax. Indiplon was rejected, torcetrapib killed people and then the company actually depended on drugs like Toviaz and Aricept 23mg to save it. Eloquis will be a flop and tofacitinib will be a huge disappointment. Can we see the pattern here?

Pfizer's strategic vision was non existent. McKinnell at least took the necessary gambles to try to remain relevant by purchasing other companies that had (at the time) viable products. Unfortunately, he rolled snake eyes and started a cascade of clowns that followed him. Kindler tried to break up the company but was an incompetent. Ian is a mere tool of the board slashing costs with no real vision of how to inject revenue.

The time is now to get out. This is a sinking ship that is destined to be lost.

 

Old timer here from another company with some observations.


In the late 80s and into the early 90s I worked for a large competitor. Large in my eyes but PFE out sampled me, out lunched me, out marketed me, and out manned me in the field and hospitals. PFE hired good people. Lots of ex military with buzz cuts and shined shoes. These guys took orders and never questioned management. So my memories are of a great organization. No barbies, just business. And they smoked me pretty good which I can respect.

I'm a director in a biotech that was recently purchased and I survived my first merger/buyout after 25 years in this industry. I consider myself fortunate. But I have watched PFE buy and grow only to fall on hard times. I feel for all of you both displaced and retained. It is not over in our industry. More contraction will occur as our business model on Pharma has become antiquated. It is tough watching big blue fall on hard times as it holds a mirror to our industry.

Good luck to all. Remember the good times in the field and how we were once a coveted career.

 

I know one thing, they are not at Merck, not at AZ, not at JNJ, not at GSK, not at Novartis, not at Forest, and not at Sanofi.
LinkedIn tells a very sad tale about some of those people that thought that they ran the world. Pick a name, any name, and look them up.

 

I know I will get pushback; however, the big downfall was with Bill Steere. HE did not have strategic vision. He just road the good drugs, got out, and pushed for McKinnell and Kindler.

In the 80s and 90s Pfizer was a good company with a well-trained and hungry field force. Success creates complacency (sp?).

 

What does 'married people carrying on together' have to do with it? What happened between consenting adults in Arrowwood, stayed in Arrowwood. Many adults enjoy an occassional extramarital experience. Some have open marriages (as we do) and some do not but this is an entirely separate issue and unrelated to the borderline criminal management of the company which they paid a huge fine for.

 

bad spelling=moron

pharma is full of them

 

It opens a window into the lack of morality and ethics at all levels. I'll go slowly, so try to follow me: if you have no problem violating your marital vows, you'll probably have no problem violating company rules, like NOT stealing on your expense account, NOT working for another company at the same time you're working for Pfizer, NOT working every day of the week while still collecting a paycheck for a full day's work.

One of the 1st things new police chiefs do is crack down on minor crimes like graffiti, hanging out with open, unwrapped alcoholic beverage containers. Why? Those are teeny little crimes, right? I mean, what are they compared to awful crimes like murder, rape and such?

Its not a coincidence that the "criminal" activity that was displayed by upper level people here often included the same people who were cheating on their spouses and spending Pfizer expense account and agency money on strippers (and worse), vacation homes, and more

 

If you saw things you didn't like, you should have immediately quit.

 

That is an assinine response at best.

 

Right on the money here. Bill Steere is more responsible than anyone else for the epic decline of Pfizer.

 

They are happily spending the fortunes they made from Pfizer in millionaire retirement communites in Florida. Working people just don't understand that when you join the 1% your problem is not making enough money, it's finding ways to spend all the money you have.

 

If they made fortunes and are happily retired, why are they on LinkedIn sniffing around? Like most people, they probably spent too much $$$ when they had an income.

Think about it: if you are used to making $500,000 a year, what the f***k is $1,800,000 in net worth going to do for you when you have to live another 40 years, put kids through private high school and colleges, support those spoiled-ass kids for a few years when no one wants to hire them, pay for their weddings, and give them cash for downpayment on their houses.... AND HAVE TO DO ALL OF THIS WITH NO INCOME?

 

Caduet. And Selzentry. And Exubera. And Bextra. And Indiplon. And that drug for osteoporosis. And all those Vicuron antibiotics and antifungals. I think that my net worth is more than the 2012 sales of all of those drugs! But we didn't cut the field force numbers to keep pace with the lack of sales for those flops. I can't believe how everyone tries to blame Ian and Kindler for this mess. Thats just dumb. We did this to ourselves.

 

Not so much Steere but the fact is the drugs were best in class up through 2000. We thought we were good because we could sell Procardia XL, Zoloft, Zithromax, Norvasc and Lipitor and of course Viagra. Lipitor was so good we paid 90 billion or something like that to buy Parke Davis. That is when it all started to crumble. Not because of PD, but because of scale. We got too large and could not sustain the earnings year after year. Then the bone headed move to buy Pharmacia and then to sell off consumer health. Just bone headed moves. That is when I realized the people running the company were clueless. Pfizer has not and will not ever be that company again. I am sure it is just CYA and ass kissing now.

R&D was a black hole that could not get anything like we had in the 90 out. Of course a lot of that was the worse luck in the world.

The bottom line is we thought we could sell anything, to anyone. Once we had some dog drugs we found out we could not. A dog is a dog even with Pfizer trying to push it!

Man, it sure was fun in the 90's though!