Why isn't Eliquis selling?

Xarelto has first market mover advantages, price advantages, payor coverage advantages (entrenchment) and dosing advantages QD over BID. Any superiority data points are clear as a mind fog to cardiologists right now.

 

JNJ has addressed market problems and is executing on solutions; Pfizer is still figuring out exactly what are the problems and how can Pfizer address them from a compliant CIA perspective (cautiously hesitant to decide and act upon).

 

At 5% of the market with three indications Xarelto ain't blow it out of the water either. For any numbskull who has at least one braincell left. First out to market in a same class drug, does mean a little something. But the only thing people can evaluate at Pfizer is activities like how many sample drop calls they are making a day. There are few still around that can or even want to evaluate a market or do drug comparisons.

 

All the above. Yet Pfizer's salesforce doesn't "sell" anymore, it now "educates". Just ask the lawyers.

 

Pfizer's business model evolved alright. From a "me-too" into a "three-too" launch company.

 

This is spot on. Duprey and Wilbanks are solely responsible for the demise. They should both be gone in the December shake out.

 

Those cluster cuts prior to launch date really hurt. Removed great talent from the organization and eliminated high-morale. The product is a Pfail to launch before it started, but ELT will never admit that. Frank needed to hit those "synergy" numbers in the absence of revenue growth measures and have something to Wall Street ahead writing down earnings expectations.

Fair number of displaced cardio reps now work at JNJ. Figures.

 

I am one of them, a 15 yr vet of the CV sales force. Just started with J&J and can't wait to begin holding Eliquis's neck under water and choking the shit out of this idiot company and the moron reps they chose to launch Eliquis with in my city.

I left last January because I did not want to drive 6 hours from my house to sell a worthless pee pill and an agent for erectile dysfunction that loses marketshare by day

Thanks, Dupey and Goober. I guess I was not one of the "best and brightest" at Pfizer that you "handpicked" to restore the company to greatness despite my hall of fame track record in cardiology and the fact that all of my customers wrote recommendation letters to get me into J&J with a top tier salary

I will take great pleasure in making sure that there is not a single script of Failequis in one of the major metropolitan markets in the country. What puny script totals there are right now are about to drop to absolute zero. There are ways it can be done.

KEEP TREATING YOUR BEST PEOPLE LIKE DOGSHIT, PFIZER

 

No Pfizer does not sell, it does not educate. Its brings food to the feed the fat staff in doctors offices.

 

19 Years at Pfizer, eight of them as a CV Rep.....and GONE. The word is "TRUSTWORTHY". This applies to this company, the industry, and the entire country. Physicians have seen so many good people treated so poorly that the only ones they will see are those who have a personal relationship. I would have never imagined that petty and vicious people would be in key leadership positions in the company I joined in 1987. You can't speak the truth (by name) on this blog w/o getting your post removed.

 

I am the person who wrote post #28

Trust me, my customers in the hospital and in cardiology know the whole story on how this company and how it treats people

It will end up being their downfall. The people they put on the Eliquis DSR team in my area couldn't have been more comically unqualified to sell this drug, but they are the knob slobbing ass kissers who are so far up the asses of the management in my area that they can taste what they are eating before they can. Nothing but show ponies who couldn't sell a dollar for fifty cents.

This was a once great company who completely lost all of the respect for both the customers and the employees here because of the snooty, euro-centric attitude they brought in here.

 

This company is full of idiots that I would not trust with a potato gun. Thats why Eliquis is not selling

 

PFE has just treated customers and their own badly for too long. Since we started buying best in class products from others discovery and then bullying MDs and payers with 15,000 reps to having layoffs of some sort every year since 1997, the blow back has been building.

Just about every customer I have had over the past 20+ years in the hospital absolutely detests PFE. They like me but tell me to my face they hate PFE in every other way. They get that I am trying to make it to rule of 90, but they still encourage me to go to a respected group.

 

Im not sure where you are from but doctors have not had great relationships with reps in over a decade if not longer... Doctors do not give a shit that we have had layoffs they are not seeing you if you have experience or your new. It's over!

The idea that laid off cardiovascular reps think they could have just walked in to cardiology is a joke, let me remind you we can no longer pay doctors honorariums in any decent academic hospital/IDN's so guess what? They ain't talking to Pfizer or anyone any more. I repeat, It's over! This job,career(haha), assignment is totally gone. (pfizer will stay pay you,yes) But you and I know this job has been over for years..

 

18 year legacy Pfizer vet here. I have maintained relationships with many of the residents and teaching fellows and former customers over the years in three distinctly different geographic areas. Here is the general consensus. I know that I am only a n of 1, but I have about 20 PCP, Academic, hospital-based, and clinic-based docs that I have personal relationships with....
-They couldnt care less about layoffs, other than saying that the industry had far too many ill-equipped salespeople in the late 90s, early 00s.

-They note a distinct and dramatic change in their industry's view towards Pharma, starting about 10 years ago.

-Med students and residents are being indoctrinated in the anti-pharma thinking, so its going to get much worse for PC and office-based reps in the next few years.

-ACOs are ramping up everywhere, and are making it clear that in most cases branded drugs are going to held under lock and key.

-They dont really distinguish much between companies, because a) there is so much switching back-n-forth, b) contract sales forces really blur the lines, c) the only reps they see are the ones that have samples they need, so they know salespeople more by drug name than by company name. But see point a) 8 yrs ago a lot of Pfizer people went to Amgen...Sanofi people went to Novo Nordisk...Takeda people went to BI...Pfizer and Merck people went to contract companies....Pfizer people went to Eisai...blah, blah.

Our drug isnt selling NOT because docs hate Pfizer, or because our CV reps got moved around, but because in the past 10 years we proved that we can't launch jack sh*t in a competitive market. So it's the status quo. We are incapable of launching if there are some biggies already in place. Another reason? Because its so hard for reps to have a meaningful conversation with docsany more, any new drug had BETTER be better than sliced bread, or it goes in the "me too" pile (thanks to payer formularies and now ACO formularies). Many have told me (on their personal time) that the value proposition of Eliquis does not justify the increased acquisition costs over other meds.

another point I feel that I must make---unfortunately, the sales and marketing leaders of the recent past werent selected because they had advanced degrees in Org Dev., or spent time crushing it in overseas markets. They did not emerge as shining stars from some 5 year leadership selection and coaching/ development process. One of them was the lesser of all evils, and the other, I am too embarrassed to type.

Somebody thats been around for more than 15 years please tell me that I am wrong?

 

The only thing I'll add having been around 20 years and sold is almost every market category is that for someone that has been around a long enough time to have built relationships with doctors who are not almost impossible to see, that long-term relationship does account for something. My doctors that have known me a very long time will put greater trust in me because of trust/credibility. That only matters if you have been the kind of rep. who said it like it was all those previous years (good and bad) and did not try to BS them with the company line. Relationships matter in every facet of life, and good relationships matter in this business as well. Of impt. not on Eliquis, the price is surprisingly good in the hospital channel and to patients, so price is not what is holding it back. The reps. are not that skilled in the market and the old school mentality of preying like vultures on physicians will hurt this drugs potential. Pfizer will never get the message.

 

I know exactly what you are talking about! I left in March for a new lease on life at Amgen after endless layoff fears and reassignments. Never allowed to leverage my sales track record, constantly fed half-truths and propaganda. To be treated like a professional and be judged on merit again, what a concept! I can only hope that the political hacks/flunkies like Duprey, Goober, Lustig, etc. finally get what they deserve. I don't want Pfizer to fail, I still have friends there and we've all earned whatever pensions are coming to us.

 

Well, I recently read that Brandicourt left for greener pastures, so maybe there's hope? Perhaps Ian has enriched himself enough to retire soon, declare victory, and the disasterous euro-vision experiment can end?

 

What does the Fox say?