Pay: Pain versus Oncology reps

Lots of grumpy pain reps now that they found out how much reps w actual experience (oncology side) are getting paid. Way different structure.
Guess the cheerleaders and dancers being hired aren't worth what a rep with experience is worth?! At least that's what their company is telling them.
Pain getting the sales and exposed legally. Bye bye reps. Hello OIG!

 

Actually, it's the opposite. The pain care rep's literally make double when including their quarterly bonus's. Insys will continue to attempt to level the yearly pay between the two sales forces by providing the oncology reps with higher base salaries until the sales force has had a chance to establish themselves in the market.

 

Find me one insys pain care rep and i'll show you a damn fool! You won't find one. The money is in the bonus potential not base salary. Everyone knows the pain doctors treat cancer pain. The oncology reps are only calling on oncologists. It's a tough gig, and Insys is vvery fortunate to have them out there trying to get these stuck up doctors educated enough to stop neglecting all the patients with cancer to stop having to live with the ridiculous pain. Not an easy job - but certainly very admirable..if anything - if insys wants to keep the oncology reps, insys will surely have to get a true product that actually treats cancer and not cancer pain - or continue to increase their rep's base salaries even higher..

 

Better answer. If you came to this company within the first 1 or 1 1/2 years... you are making great money. If you have been hired recently your not. Doesn't matter pain vs oncology or whatever.

This company carves territory by "doctors" and not by zip codes. Meaning the original crew got all the top fentanyl writers in their call plans. Newer reps being hired are given call plans worth crap with docs who never have and never will ever write a fast acting fentanyl product. Many people hired within the last 6 months quitting in droves now that they've learned they have been lied to when recruiters told them how much money they could make.

Even to the pioneer reps of the company... that big money is coming to an end very soon. Wait for the OIG to come down.... they will put an end to that shady compensation plan.


Signed
former employee

 

Former Employee,
Why did you quit? Is there really no money left to be made? I just started with the company and am not sure what to think. I was very excited about the bonus potential and average payouts compared to other pharma companies. Also, I have heard of reps doing pa forms and am worried about that being a violation of hippa. Can you speak to what its really like at Insys? I'm not afraid of hard work or doing thing outside of the box to make money, but I don't want to break the law or not make bonus.

 

Insys does not use recruiters. This entire thread has zero credibility. OIG and all pharma companies are tied at the hip. This is part of being in the industry. OIG looks at every company, levies a fine, and begins the process all over again. They are like the IRS of pharma. Hate them, love them, it doesn't matter. Just except them if you are going to be an owner of a pharma company. BTW - if you don't own a pharma company, the OIG could care less about you. No offense

 

I quit because i found out real soon that the bonuses they say you can make are false and skewed to the reps that started at the company a long time ago. You see this product has a niche user base and all those users belong to reps already at the company. When you get hired as i was, they cut out a new territory for you that has no current prescribers and your job is to get them to believe in the drug. One big problem. Our competition has been calling on them for years. Even our own reps have been calling on them since the company started. They have never written! Can you get lucky and find one writer here or there? Yes. Will you ever have the volume the "original 20" as management likes to call them? No.

When interviewing be very frank and ask hiring manager to give you the mean and averages of bonuses for reps in the "original 20" or reps who have been hired into an "expansion territory"

I have heard and confirmed of reps making over $100k per quarter. But that is maybe the top 10 reps in the company and again your chance to ever make anything close to that is zero because at this point there just aren't anymore doctors out there who will use this drug who already have not. Take the job. Come back to this post in 60 days and you will agree with everything i said

 

Better answer - the Brutal truth..

It definitely sounds like this "poster" definteiylw worked for Insys. A Lot of what was said was true! One major thing that me ( in the top 20) wants to tell you is that I agree the oig may try to cut the big bonus payouts. I am so excited that this company at least pays those that truly outperform the rest. I started with not a single writer. I worked hard and also got lucky. Guess what - I'm actually getting paid! I worked for two other companies where I performed and was even a PC winner - only to make a total of an extra 20k for the entire year. Now. That is shady!!!! Insys pays! Be in the top 20 and you will get paid, that's all I could ask for from this piece of crap industry that scams 100 percent of the sales force. At least insys only screws 80 percent. Hmm, are they really screwing the 80 percent that can't sell? Good conversation for sure. I'm sorry you didn't like insys and didn't get great targets, but at least you had the opportunity to get paid - should you get lucky. That's all am asking for from an industry made up of scam artists.

 

Pharma is shady. It can be the best and worst industry. Golden handcuffs for sure. Tried other industries only to get a lower base, crap benefits and terrible vacation. All I want is to know I can sell the product. Bad targeting can cause a top rep to under perform and vice versa.

 

Previous poster with "brutal truth" is spot on. Life is not fair and this industry is not fair.... So to those 20 reps making all the money Godspeed and more power to you. Yes its true they all started with not a single writer but they also were given the targets "most likely" to write meaning docs who used a ton of the competitors drugs, ones that were waiting and excited for our drug to come out, were signing up to be speakers and so forth.

The only issue for you original poster looking to come on board now is that all those great targets are taken and aren't ever being given up by the existing reps. Every round they hire you are getting a worse and worse call deck with targets who may ever write even if Jesus Christ himself came over to try and sell it. These are docs who just don't utilize our class of drug as there are many says to treat pain and they choose to stay away.

That being said great for you original reps im not hating. You guys were in the right place at the right time and benefited. I would only say hang onto those bonus checks because the rest of the industry pays flat annual 20-30k bonuses and maybe 70-80k base at best. Your 100k per quarter days will definetly come to an end. Don't love beyond your means and put away some of that money. You rode the wave and it will come to an end some day most likely sooner than later

 

Just so you know Galena is the company to work for. I love this place.

 

So figures... every time one finds a company they love to work for, then end up going "belly up". Galena got rid of their CEO, but it has not seemed to do much if anything at all for the analysts. Stock just seems to sit at rock bottom.