Why isn't Eliquis selling?

BMY reps -- I'm a reporter with Bloomberg News, I cover you and your industry, and I want to know why Eliquis isn't selling despite having a best-in-class profile. No help from above? Alliance too clumsy? Xarelto too entrenched?

I'd like to know a bit more about how BMS and Pfizer are promoting this thing. Contact me (from a personal email, not on a work computer) at darmstrong17(AT)bloomberg(DOT)net. Google me if you want to confirm that I'm legit, my email and telephone number are at the bottom of every story.

Thanks for the help.

-Drew Armstrong, Bloomberg News

 

Two word (well, actually, its 3): We're Pfizer. Look us up, Dave. We aint done shote in a decade and a half. Our R&D has come up with zippo worth mentioning since Vfend in 2001 or 2002. We can't launch a drug to save our souls. I am embarrassed to list the meds we've "successfully" launched in the past 10 years. With the exception of Lyrica (Golden Oldie Neurontin with a few substitutions on the molecule), we've done nothing.

Look up our Annual Reports for the past 10 years and you'll have yourself a guffaw. In the recent past we've launched drugs that cost more in field force salary than the drugs have sold!

I liken BMS partnering with us to launch Eliquis to the teams that signed crickety, beat up football players at the end of their careers. The teams are inking those deals based on what those players ONCE APPEARED TO BE, not who they really were or really are.

 

GO F*** YOURSELF.

 

They have the wrong people selling it in a lot of cases

Many of the experienced Cardiovascular Representatives were slotted to other parts of the company, selling myriad garbage drugs like Toviaz and Pristiq

Pfizer fails to grasp the basic tenets of selling any product to any customer, which involves the doctor knowing, respecting and trusting the rep and the information being given.

Many of the Eliquis specialty representatives knew nothing about Cardiology when they were put in charge of selling the product.

This company believes that people are completely interchangeable, track records within specified accounts mean nothing, and people are not respected for any of the work that they have done

Its all about who will do what the are told without speaking up, and who feeds the massive, out of control egos of the higher ups who slot people every time the company downsizes.

Most of the initiators and difference makers have been downsized out of the company or have left on their own to make a name for themselves elsewhere because of the toxic, vindictive and spiteful attitude of the idiots running this company. Most of us are just here to collect a paycheck and add to the severance package we are hoping to get

 

Ain't that the truth!!

 

Dave,

99% of doctors don't see reps. Pharma companies think it's like 50% but truth be told we can hardly see anyone. When we see the few docs we can, we have our hands tied and can't even say anything about competition. This is a pharma problem. If this were the 90's this drug would be flying! Pharma companies and particulary Pfizer knew how to sell drugs.

Doctors are so busy that they don't want to know about new drugs (even drugs that cause less death i.e. eliquis over warfarin.. The lack of uptake says as much about doctors being busy then it says about pharma industry. The truth is that Doctors really don't want to learn about new drugs and all the regulation over pharma helps keep the benefits of this drug from being promoted to them.

I agree Eliquis is a no brainer! So it's the lack of promotion that companies can do and lack of interest of busy doctors in 2013. Common sense would tell that if you had a drug that prevented more stokes, caused 1/3 less bleeds and patients on Eliquis live longer by 11% with no INR testing then why would anyone stay on Warfarin (actually real life rat poison). Do update us and tell us where this will be published

 

It won't be published because it's all bullshit. Coumadin is a 50 yr old PROVEN drug. Generics are crap and where people get into trouble with bleeds. How can you compare and show differentials in bleed, deaths, etc. when no INR testing is done? How do you even know if the blood levels are in the therapeutic range? Bogus claims for a bogus class of drugs.

 

I give them all five years, and they will be black boxed or removed from market. Too dangerous and INR's/PT need to be monitored ala Coumadin.

Pfizer's reputation in the medical community is terrible. Their money doesn't buy what it once did, and the quality of the reps has declined to very low levels of competence and respect.

 

Bloomberg may as well ask why Xeljanz isn't selling too.

 

Bloomberg may also ask " why is prevnar 13 not selling?"

 

Eliquis is not selling because it was not the first new anti-coagulant to the market, it has no indications, it has no hospital formularies (for the most part) and it has no managed care coverage; how is that ?

 

Thanks for the responses in the comments here, guys (and for the special brand of CafePharma affection), but what I really need is to actually talk with you, I can't use web gripes. Won't use your name, won't quote you directly. I'm trying to get a better sense from the field and those who manage them what's actually going on here. Many thanks to the couple of folks who've already reached out.

Again -- use a personal device, personal email to get in touch, and google me if you want to check that I'm legit. darmstrong17(at)bloomberg(dot)net

-Drew Armstrong, drug industry reporter, Bloomberg News

 

Drew, these comments aren't web gripes, they're the truth. You should know that by now, masked with comical satire (which is for us to keep our sanity about the whole dysfunctional pharma industry). Why don't you write a piece about and disclose to the world the "house of cards" known as pharma. No one is going to contact you and give you their name for fear of retaliation and lack of trust to disclose to a reporter. Your the investigator, you need to piece together the facts from different sources (one of your best will be cafepharma), along with the analyst data reports that have taken notice of the slow uptake of Pfizer "supposed" potential blockbusters. The analyst see the slow revenue growth, the folks on cafepharma explain to you why that's the case. There is legitimate history to this site for leaking major pharma events (mainly #'s of layoffs) right before they are announced you are aware.

 

To the person who doubted the claims. There are no level to check BECAUSE THE DRUG HAS THERAPEUTIC LEVELS when you take the drug. That is the whole point of this new drug class and one reason why there is less bleeding and strokes. Warfarin "levels" go up and down even when you take the drug properly, that is why you check levels in a warfarin patient. You sound more like a investor than a medical professional. Please note: This was published in new england journal of medicine (the most prestiges peer reviewed and the study was 18,000 patients. The data is not controversial that Eliquis more effective, safer, and causes less death. The question is why can't a new drug with this many benefits doesn't have a faster update.

 

1) 3rd to market in a downward pressure hospital supplier/reimbursement market, and until Oct 1st no real robust presence in hospital accounts versus JNJ/Janssen.

2) Xarelto QD dosing verus BID for Eliquis, convenience to dose and patient Rx adherence matter.

3) JNJ locked up market for KOL speakers and hospital formulary wins first.

4) Physicians are apathetic to evidence-based data in a value-based purchasing and reimbursement environment. Does it really matter for any given outcome on a patient-by-patient basis where Number Needed to Treat (NNT)=1?

5) Corporate Integrity Agreement severely if not entirely limits any "salesmanship" influencing role to HCPs, in a CPOE driven software and protocol-formulary compliance/transparency oversight environment.

 

Blame it on Pfizer DBMs and RMs. Management communicated activity is more important than outcomes. Management direction; check the box. None of the managers want to show up on a list with their name at the bottom.

If Ian, the board of directors and the shareholders knew of this, managers would and should be fired.

Go talk to reps in Cluster 2, especially those in the STH E. Pfizer's cluster 2 reps in the SE are not permitted to think for themselves. OWN IT, OWN what? Not one rep in Cluster 2 OWNs their business. Management has taken away any decision making ability a rep once had. Job satisfaction and morale is extremely low right now. Management doesn't care and don't want to hear the truth. Management wants reps to be moronic robots. Guess who the real moronic robots are? Management is too busy managing or sucking up. Pfizer needs leaders not managers. Please clean house and hire leaders.

I just had my POA where the focus was on activity not outcomes. Enough said.

 

In summary, I'm saying that people like me are caustic and are the problem. Hangers on who hate everyone and everything but we feel entitled to a paycheck and bonus. Even though we do nothing but bitch about how much we hate Pfizer.

 

Hey Bloomberg News why don't you directly contact any high volume anti-coagulant writer/s and ask them why they are not prescribing Eliquis. Better you hear it from them directly.

 

The reason it's not selling is because Pfizer retained all the wrong reps.

PERIOD

 

First tell me why Eliquis is not selling. Xarelto reps face the same problems you do!