Afrezza Sales AND Marketing leads should be canned. Today

In my almost 20 years in this industry, I can think of very few examples of poor leadership and execution than our Afrezza teams.

Why?

Unlike the waves of me-too products in the diabetes space, Afrezza has, shall we say, a slightly different mechanism of action and delivery system. So, you'd THINK that our customers would know alllll about it, several months post-launch. Many of us (myself included) argue that we should have more than a paltry couple of hundred Rx by now. But the following blurb from an investment blog date 5/19 is damning. For this, there is no excuse. In this random sampling of docs (including Endos), more than 1/3 DIDNT EVEN KNOW THAT THE D*MNED DRUG WAS LAUNCHED?!
"Last week, investment group Jefferies re-affirmed its "Buy" rating on the stock while simultaneously releasing its survey results on Mannkind's pillar drug Afrezza. The survey was conducted among 120 physicians (including endocrinologists), and it asked for opinions on Afrezza. Results showed that over 35% of the surveyed doctors had not even been aware that Afrezza was available for sale. This seems like an advertising failure on the part of Sanofi (NYSE:SNY) and Mannkind."

Can we hit the re-sent button in HQ and bring in some bright and modern sales and marketing leadership? While we're at it, can we please teach the field force how to interact with TODAY's customers?

 

I think you are missing the point .. according to the survey 65% of docs are aware, yet none of them are writing for it. Know why? Because the product is a POS and the market doesn't need it. Sanofi will kill it in February when they are contractually allowed to shut it down.

 

No. Patients LOVE it. You dear have some, shall we say, conflicts of interest to mull over.

 

Wow.

This is how its supposed to be done, OK: MONTHS before launch, high prescribers, KOLs and all kinds of publications and blogs should be firing up the docs and the patients. "Its finally HERE, ladies and gentlemen."

The day the drug hits those pharmacies, everyone should be ready to go. IIRC, Afrezza day one was several months ago. To think that 1/3 of docs (probably, many of them Endos) didn't even know the drug was launched several months post-launch is freakin' pathetic, but par for the course in the "new" Sanofi.

But hey, we haven't launched jack-shyte since Lantus. And by all counts, we lucked into that because its clearly superior to our so-called competition at that point.

Look at our launch track record from 2007-2015. I don't know who is the bigger joke: US or GSK

 

They blew 12 Billion on Accomplia and it never launched. Do you think this is the reason they wouldn't spend pre-launch for Afrezza? They were flying my pre-launch Accomplia KOLs from Wisconsin to Wyoming three years before the drug went before the FDA.

 

I thought the so called Sanofi Diabetes Nation Wonder Team could do everything? What a crock of SH!T!!! Every one of you di!ckweeds are useless!!

 

Guys .. this ranks among the worst product launches in the history of the industry .. Remember BiDil, the heart failure drug for blacks, or Moxatag, the more convenient amoxicillin -- both disasters that put their respective companies literally into bankruptcy .. well this is trailing both of those launches 15 weeks in. How is that possible?? This only ends one way .. Sanofi shooting the drug and MannKind going out of business.

 

Us.

 

2 things ... they are still holding on to Apidra . They will shovel money into a hole forever. It's a matter of pride.

You think it's tough now? Wait until lickzy'metoo-otide comes out. That's when the fun starts. The same genius marketing people will run licksy.

It ain't gonna sell and they will blame the field.

There will be blood.

 

Having spent time in Bridgewater, I can assure you that when things go poorly, its an implementation/execution problem, ALWAYS. "Blame the field force. They suck."

But, in the rare times that things go really well (i.e. Lantus and Lovenox are the only ones that comes to mind right now), it is ALWAYS because we finally executed on headquarter's brilliant strategies.

 

Don't forget the cash cow Plavix. Brent Ragans and The Bock Boys all claimed to be marketing and leadership icons. These guys could fuckup a paint by numbers project. Same goes for Lantus and Lovenox making serious coin and the management twirps taking all the credit. The continual failed launches over the last 7 years is a comedy of errors by the home office. Finger-pointing and incompetence rules at Sanofi. These people in the home office with power are aome of the most least impressive executives in the industry. Afrezza has been a mess. Auviq was a complete bowel movement of a launch and the list goes on past Mulcrap. Stop blaming the field for your fuckup launch playbook.

 

Here is the problem with Sanofi. Ever since Sanofi took over Aventis, the Sanofi employment model has been in place. People wanting to do a specific job rotated through various other positions with a 18 month required stint. No one stays in a position long enough to become an "expert". Aventis had people in marketing that wanted to be in marketing, in sales training that wanted to be in sales training, managers that wanted to be managers and sales reps that wanted to sell and it worked! They had a passion for a specific job and did it very well for many years. With Sanofi, there are way too many people "doing their time" in critical positions then moving on. Not to mention the ones that have no business failing time after time after time!

 

We have been a case study in ineptitude since 2007. Please look at the sordid cast of characters we had running sales and marketing from 2006-2014. And now, look at their results.

So now, we have a CEO that got fired from PFIZER for goodness sakes?

You can't make this stuff up.

 

Incompetent people need to work too.

 

It's regular human insulin, and no one wants it. Dress it up in as many new devices as you want, but it doesn't change the fact that physicians don't want to use the molecule. Physicians didn't know the product was available because no one was waiting for it, as there was no excitement about its potential pre-launch. Blame that on whomever you want. You could basically make an inhalable turd, and you'd have the same thing.

 

Fired from Pfizer?

 

Don't forget that our great VP of Managed Markets, who claims she also worked on Exubera also was getting shit -canned from Pfizer. What a great group of industry rejects continuing to be as incompetent as they can be!

 

remember we are a launch powerhouse

 

Always thought the knucklehead who came up with that phrase should be the first to go. There's no powerhouse of any sort at Sanofi except the vicious HR department. This company is doomed for failure unless this department is fired . Think of all the musical chairs and re-alignments and management rejects coming and going and Judy OHahan still causing spin and havoc in the company. Again Sanofi is doomed.

 

"Ya get what ya pay for."


We hire cast-offs from other companies, we continuously fire, and then swap out our senior leaders, yet we get the same results (year after year). I implore everyone to invest time and effort seeking career advice and doing some informational interviews outside of this industry.

Our mess is coming at a time when payers/PBMs and hospitals are ramping up to tighten formularies, and will squeeze the industry hard as a strategy to keep costs down.

This isn't going to be like 2007 or even 2011. THIS industry-wide clipping will be deep. With this new-found pressure on acquisition costs, the fastest and easiest way for the industry as a whole to keep bloated profits high is to cut head count. It really shouldn't be a surprise, as we (speaking as an industry) really don't need 3 to 5 reps "calling on" each doctor, do we?

There will be companies that will try to resist the trend. Hopefully, we'll be one of them. But as a whole, the old Merck Reach & Frequency model will be put to sleep in another year or two. And the streets will be flooded with "award-winning, innovative pharmaceutical sales executive is open for opportunity" type titles on LinkedIn.

Again, from a payer/PBM point of view, 2017 will be VERY different than 2007 and 2011.