Oncology PIP

I've heard rumblings thru the grapevine and my rd is worried that the mothership will have little to no patience with poor performance. How can this even be considered in light of whats been handed to us?

 

This isn't what I signed up for, I should have stayed where I was

 

I've been in this business a long time and have never been put on a pip and have no plans on going on one anytime soon. As the op pointed out, these circumstances are totally out of our control.

 

A little vicious diarrhea won't hurt grandpa. He probably hasn't has a soft poop in years. Suck it up buttercup!

 

Classic LMFAO

 

"vicious diarrhea" great name for the company rock band! was thinking of "black box warning", but that's already taken by genentech bio-oncology band

 

Is Hell Hole available?

 

Try working for the RD on the west coast, he is the definition of incompetent!

 

They're all in way over their heads and I wouldn't be surprised if a couple left in the next few months.

 

I don't know what's happening in other regions, but our dir is starting to turn the thumb screws hard!! I should've stayed where I was because this is really starting to suck and where I was really wasn't that bad. Live and learn

 

I can't imagine this is the majority. I can see a few areas, but the drug has to be doing well. Right?

 

Zy is not doing well, tracking way behind expectations. I know one or two RDs are in a panic but ours is taking it in stride.

 

Gilead has a history (up until about 2.5 years ago) of giving reps 3-6 months to move the needle or putting you on a PIP..

The stock had plateaued in 2010-2011 and the RSU/ESPP carrot was no longer as strong as incentive to stay, so they had high turnover and a bad reputation in the industry right as they were beginning to grow..

Then HR slapped together a flurry of measures to try and make upper management look like kind caring Jim Collins espousing holistic visionary leaders who will tap your inner spirit and get you to soar..

The reality is that upper management believe that MSL's are the most effective customer facing experts that give the real marginal value add... and that the reps are here to press play on the canned DVA presentations on the Ipad. Wait until 15 investigator sponsored trials are published on your drug and all you can do is hand over a sealed reprint and phone a friend to the MSL.

 

Here's a way out of this mess

Xtandi field force gets a staffing boost for market-share battle with Zytiga
September 15, 2014 | By Tracy Staton

Astellas and Medivation bagged that new Xtandi approval in prostate cancer. What next? Gear up for a head-to-head with Johnson & Johnson's ($JNJ) Zytiga. And to do that, Medivation is expanding its sales force by 50%, Medical Marketing & Media reports.

With Astellas fielding 90 reps to tout Xtandi, Medivation decided to boost its team to 90 reps from 60. That's because the new label--backing Xtandi for use in patients not yet treated with chemo--opens up a new group of potential prescribers. Naturally, Medivation wants to reach them.

In a conference call about the new approval, CEO Dr. David Hung said Medivation and Astellas could previously only target urologists who deliver chemotherapy. That's only "a small segment" of the urology universe. Now that the approval nixes chemo as a prerequisite, the two partners can "target all urologists," Hung said (as quoted by MM&M).

Of course, Zytiga has a big head start in the pre-chemo setting, with that FDA nod under its belt since December 2012. But analysts give Xtandi a good shot at dominating the first-line market.

When Medivation unveiled its pre-chemo data early this year, JPMorgan analyst Geoffrey Meacham said the "impressive" stats "definitely favor the Astellas-Medivation drug." The data left "little room for debate on whether Xtandi or J&J's Zytiga will have majority market share" in that group of patients, he said.

Last week, as the FDA approval came through, the enthusiasm was undiminished. Leerink Partners' Howard Liang had already posited in an August note that Xtandi's success in the post-chemo world is a sign of things to come in pre-chemo patients.

But price could be a factor, as MM&M notes. Liang himself has said that some insurers have favored Zytiga because of the cost difference. (When Xtandi launched, it carried a $74,500 price tag, compared with Zytiga's $66,000.) For instance, in January, Blue Cross of Massachusetts put Xtandi behind Zytiga on a new step-therapy policy in prostate cancer. So, while the field reps knock on doors in urology and oncology, Astellas and Medivation will have to make their case with payers as well.

Still, there's plenty of room for both Xtandi and Zytiga to be blockbusters. Decision Resources has said that the prostate cancer market is expected to double to $9.1 billion by 2021, with Xtandi expected to hit $2.2 billion by then.

 

anyone know who the headhunter is?

 

another failed promise

Gilead's oncology contender comes up short in pancreatic cancer
September 17, 2014

Gilead Sciences' ($GILD) simtuzumab failed to meet its main goal in a Phase II pancreatic cancer trial, denting the potential of a therapy the company hopes can treat a wide range of malignancies.

Simtuzumab is an antibody that blocks the LOXL2 enzyme, which is believed to play a major role in tumor progression and fibrosis. To test its mettle in pancreatic cancer, Gilead enrolled 236 treatment-naive patients, dosing half with a combination of simtuzumab and chemotherapy and the rest with standard treatment alone. After 28 weeks, simtuzumab proved no better than placebo at forestalling tumor progression, Gilead said, flunking its primary endpoint.

 

The "5 BLACK BOX WARNINGS" with reported deaths in the PI and the REMs program is disastrous. Docs are scared of it! A last resort option at best.

 

Yeah, we're in trouble. I have been polishing my resume all morning. Doc's just don't want to use it period!

 

Not what I heard, they have expressed how well the launch is going

 

ANOTHER COMMENTARY FROM RAH RAH MANAGEMENT