Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics - Region North America re-org

Re: Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics - Region North America re-org
First the move to NJ now Fluad and neither have happened. What to believe?

Both of them are true. It may be some time before the official announcement comes out. But the NJ move is in the works, and the Fluad troubles are real and true

 

Fluad? Wasn't Flu one of the only things that we have done "right"? The next biggest thing regarding Flu that would be id'ed as a positive development along with the expectation of getting Fluad was the $1B sales of Pandemic Flu vaccine to the US Govt. We'd better hope that nothing happens that will besmirch that deal!

 

I've got a question - Where do we go and what do we do after we swim out of this shit soup and try to move on to another job post NVD?

I mean, what does one put on their resume? It'll be like having experience from Enron on it!

Should Novartis compensate us all for the stench that will cling to us after?

 

Where ever he is, do you think that his new boss, if he has one, is spending as much time as Andrin did when Ralph was here, signing-off on expense exceptions like - cars on trips where Ralph was proven not to be on? A house full of dry cleaning on every trip? Fire places in his Condos in Buenos Ares? We have to have made a lot of compromises at NVD in order to get leaders with any sort of experience at NVD. Anyone know any Matt Stoiber stories?

 

I wonder who else could have been involved with this? Is there a back story that the BPO should be made aware of so the truth could be known?

 

Ralph, Ralph, Ralph --while there were many arrogant bunglers in the NVD story after acquisition of Chiron (Rajiv and Vas to name just 2), Ralph perhaps caused the most damage to the NVD pipeline with a pitifully poor clinical program -a rudderless ship. Menveo was meant to be the only cradle to grave meningococcal vaccine and if he had organized the clinical and regulatory planning as the real scientists from Chiron had intended, Menveo infant would have licensed before the ACIP turned cold to recommending MenACWY vaccine use in infants. Don't bother waiting for the infant licensure of Menveo because it's useless now without a recommendation. Bexsero is the Only pipeline hope for NVD. The flu portfolio is like a patchwork quilt -no match for sanofi.
Good thing they brought in Brent -Finally bringing in someone with vaccine experience, but I'm afraid for him there's not much to work with at this point. Sorry, NVDers, the sooner you jump that ship the better -or take their paycheck as long as you can, but have a contingency plan ready to pull the trigger on.

 

So Ralph was not only a crook but incompetent as well? You seem to have a fairly high opinion of Menveo when it in well known that it isn't much better than Menactra, much harder to administer and isn't part of a bundle. It was a born loser. Bexsero - is there even a market in the US for it? And besides, the issues with that is killing Tech Ops and Quality. Pipeline from Chiron? You must be joking? Rino is "all show no go" and the only science that Chiron ever brought into the world is turning into a commodity in a few years years when the patents for the anti-bodies Diagnostics holds run out in a few years. Have you ever taken a look at the budget in a 2 years? It looks like a cliff the Coyote would run off while chasing the Road Runner. Brent "knowing Vaccines"? I think that the general opinion of those NVD'ers that have met him that he isn't too bright as it is taking him a while to realize that almost no one in Cambridge wants or is willing to move to NJ. I bet that they are of the opinion that we will move because we like this company and need a job. Unless they give us all VP positions like Chris Fikry (hint to Brent - he already lived close to there!) then why take the financial hit with a rotting corpse this org has turned out to be and move with it to NJ - hah!

 

Who was involved in the decision process at Novartis to buy Chiron? Were Andrin, Rajiv, Vaz and Ralph at Novartis at that time? Wouldn't it be interesting, from a stock-holder lawsuit point of view, if the guys involved in making the purchasing of Chiron look like a good deal, later went on to profit from it afterwards by being employed there. I realize that from the post above, the assumption that Chiron was a good company but was later screwed up by Andrin, Rajiv, Ralph and Vas is unquestioned but I think that only the most naive person would believe that. I think that it is now obvious that Chiron was a disaster waiting to unfold and that the purchase of Chiron by Novartis only offered the deep pockets needed to fund it long enough to do so. I think that the interesting questions are: Who "sold" the idea of buying Chiron? Are they and their ideas and leadership still in Novartis / NVD? Did they are they still benefiting? Something for an outside analysts with a pair producing a few sperm to work on?

 

Then = Novartis’ view of Chiron pre-purchase or within short time after the acquisition
Now = Reality
Future = Where we go from here
Then
Research / Rino - were a huge scientific resource. They had filled a vaccines development pipeline full with future highly marketable vaccines. Many of these were made more effective, less harmful (faster development and regulatory approval) and had their development had been accelerated (less cost) by the application of Rino’s world renowned Reverse Vaccinology. The future pipeline (put all vaccines now in the pipeline and touted by NVD here) would only benefit even more from this science and would be funded by the revenue from vaccines now in the pipeline but soon the be marketed (Menveo, Bexsero, Fluad).
Development - was sitting on this pipeline and only needed some investment in order to bring these vaccines to the market. Menveo was in the bag for a blockbuster ($1B) or at worst 50% market share. Does anyone remember or realize that NVD began with a Development org that looked like one from a biotech start-up? Where most of the work of the trials was outsourced to CRO’s etc or at best, a hybrid model where the trial work is shared among the Development Organization and CRO’s? This can be a good model if it is truly optimized. But, how does it benchmark against our market peers, Merck or GSK etc. Ralph was running all this.
Tech Ops - Matt Stoiber ran a hodge-podge organization inherited from Chiron, Diagnostics was not a manufacturer because they had out-sourced the manufacturing of the only product (HIV detecting mono-clonal antibodies) to another company while retaining the royalties from the patents. They were trying to become a manufacturer of vaccines by funding the purchasing of other vaccine manufactures with the royalties from their patents, in hopes of capitalizing on their science in the future.
Quality – did it, in effect, exist before Novartis purchased Chiron?
Global Markets / Region North America – Global markets was a diverse group cobbled together form the marketing arms from the various acquisitions. Region North America went from the various Tech Ops sites directly to a few Wholesalers / Distributors.
Global Public Health Marketing & Medical Affairs (GPHM&MA)– didn’t exist at the time.
Now
Research / Rino – Menveo was not easier to get through regulatory, it was 5 months late, it was only marginally more effective and has not turned out to be viewed as more safe as the FDA has shown that it is not willing to approve it for infants any sooner than its competitors. And remember, it was research that developed a vaccine that required reconstitution. Bexsero, like Menveo before it, is not benefiting from being a product of Rino’s Reverse Vaccinology. What does this say about the vaccines that remain in the pipeline or, even those to come? So far, Rino has been a much better self-promoter than a scientist that has been able to produce vaccines that contribute to public health or vaccines that we can actually market. What does his promise of developing “templates” for flu future vaccines mean in this regard?

Development – Ralph & Co. Screwed up the Menveo submission, remember the label where a “gentle swirl” was adequate where the resubmission eventually said “vigorous shaking”? What did that cost, one year and a market reputation? What about Fluad – his finger prints are all over that future turd bomb. Bexsero, is going through what Menveo did early on. After Ralph they are now an even more bloated and expensive organization that are multiple times more expensive and less productive than their peers and a model for the organization that is a joke. Their expertise is now critical for the response to the Infant Menveo filling. And Vas is now running it or at least trying hard to.
Tech Ops – Is still a dysfunctional disaster. NVD has either built other sites (Holly Springs and Site 4 at Liverpool) or has acquired and / or building others in Brazil or China. Holly Springs is a White Elephant paid for by the Fed Govt where NVD promises to pay back the govt’s investment with future cell based adjuvented pandemic flu vaccines. So, the federal govt will get paid back only if / when the next flu pandemic will force them the license the vaccine. And, Novartis is welcome to use the almost billion dollar facility to produce vaccines, when not producing the next pandemic flu vaccine, for the US market. So, that will be what vaccines, when and what will be the ROI? And, since the $50M plus Fill & Finish line there will only produce pre-filled syringes in order to utilize that NVD will need to change the buying preferences of the US market. Liverpool was shut down by the FDA and failed to produce any flu vaccine one season. Since, it has supplied ~ $1B of pandemic flu and ~ $1B of seasonal flu, for the US market since. This is not to mention the hundreds of millions of doses of flu vaccines that it has produced for the world since. It was decided that 2 of the old sites have been shut down and all of the secondary manufacturing activities have been move to Italy. Marburg is a complete disaster. Under NVD’s care it has caught the Liverpool disease and been practically shut-down by the FDA. It is too expensive for what it produces and no one knows what to do with the newly built MARS site. Sound like Holly Springs? Project PINNACLE was a complete disaster except for the fact that all the work for forecasting future vaccine sales and production of vaccine was identified as being important and it now forces someone in marketing to input future sales into an intranet system and then forces someone in Supply Chain to make monthly inputs into SAP for shipments to match. After millions spent on consulting and systems development work this has resulted in simply moving the expertise and work normally, in most companies, accomplished by Forecasters working in SAP, out to others. Yet, we still have dozens of forecasters and the Supply Chain and Global Marketing Orgs have reacted to the additional work required with additional headcounts. How did they convince Russell Thirsk to take the job as Head of Tech Ops after Matt’s sudden departure? It is no secret that he wasn’t their first choice after taking Matt’s place on an interim basis. They couldn’t get anyone else to take the job. Did they offer him a special bonus and another responsibility after taking the blows for a brief pre-agreed to time period?
Quality – what to say but Susanne Mertz’ has a “strong” personality and as a person she is a “force of nature” and has to be reckoned with. It’s too bad that her acerbic leadership style hasn’t translated into an organization that follows Quality’s guidance. You can’t terrorize an organization into following you and most of the effort within NVD is spent avoiding her gaze rather than complying with GxP’s or ensuring that the FDA is happy. For an example just look at Marburg, we all know that we’d rather gauge our own eye out (metaphorically speaking, of course) rather than make a Quality issue be known. The opinion is that they are under manned, of low talent and exhibit little leadership and are more willing to find scapegoats than proactively find solutions. It is very possible that there are significant portions of the operations that should be operating differently so as to avoid the regulatory agencies and are really just ticking time bombs waiting to go off.
Markets / Region NA – is a real horror story. It can be understood from the perspective that the NVD business model, as conceived a few years ago, and the perceived special needs of the US market, were all wrong. And as such a President’s position who was seen / intended to be effectively the successor to the CEO was thus created. This led to a series of miscalculations that have created a Region North America organization whose function and costs are needed to only a much reduced degree. The org was built up, as described above, in anticipation of the Pipeline (especially Menveo) needing a fully functional “operational sales, marketing and distribution organization” to support it. After all, in the US, it was planned to have a “block buster” vaccine in Menveo with a quick series of new vaccines from the pipeline thus the need for extensive sales, sales operations, marketing and back room processes. NVD has a field sales headcount of ~ 140 people that cover most of the US. There has always been a struggle to develop a credible comp plan for them as they have never sold enough to support their existence. So why are Sales Operations and Marketing still of the size and expense that they are? The feeling is if NVD were to cut the Sales, Sales Operations and Marketing headcount by 50% you’d see no appreciable drop in sales revenue. After all, they don’t sell flu and most of Menveo is VFC or “pull through” for the Wholesale or Distributor channels. They have and are spending millions of dollars on IT Sales Tools that they don't need. IT is playing along to keep their jobs. Lest we think that the back office processes get off let’s ask ourselves why we spend millions of dollars / year on a Customer Service team sized to support a vaccine sales revenue 2-4 times the size that it is. The IT system to support the block buster Menveo was implemented in 4-10 months and could have been reasonably implemented in 2 years while relying on the old processes and systems or even not implementing the new system by actually taking the time to understand what they really needed and utilize a system already implemented. Logistics is the same, because the estimates of the revenue were way too large and the ramp up time frames so compressed because of unrealistic expectations quick and dirty solutions were chosen rather than the obvious choice of just utilizing Novartis Pharma’s distribution system. In short, Region North America has been too expensive (2 – 4 times) because of the unrealistic expectations and poor leadership decisions and never needed a President to run it.
Global Public Health Marketing & Medical Affairs (GPHM&MA) – what a joke of an organization! It is really a bandage on the festering wound that is the end-to-end vaccine product process of NVD. It was creating by Udit Batra who used it to sell himself into another larger job at a major vaccines player in Europe. Johanna is, like most leaders at NVD, a compromise in that they could not recruit someone with relevant experience to take the job. The Global Project Team heads are as follows: Norbert Kline – failed Tech Ops head in Germany , the Head of Flu is about to be shit caned due to the upcoming Fluad debacle and the others are so immaterial as not to be worth discussing. Most everyone there is a retread from another part of NVD or is from the outside that started at a lower level and are leading now by default.

Future

Not a stand alone org but a division of Pharma. No need for boards, CEO's, CFO's and Presidents but a few VP's in the Pharma Org. A larger Tech Ops has more headcount but spends less on deviations, and other issues as it leverages Pharma Tech Ops. The non-productive cost of Holly Springs is then diluted into Pharma Tech Ops. The same but to a larger degree with Development as they will have many more people but out source less, Vas can't get them there with his lack of experience. Region North America - A VP of Sales and Marketing that reports into Pharma and is < 50% the size and cost that it is now. No need for a standalone logistics process as it will be all integrated with Pharma. Same for all the other support functions. Research can then be totally integrated with NIBR and sized appropriately. Quality? I would hate to be the HR person sent to shit can Susanne!

 

hum, seems to get some of the facts wrong without missing the overall picture so if we were to get a few others in NVD and correct those it would read like a chronological history. and the point isn't if one could have had perfect foresight one could have predicted NVD coming to this point but if good judgement mixed with a little experience could have guessed that it would turn out this way and thus made better decisions. By better I mean from a Novartis stockholder point of view - spend less revenues the same. Then, it becomes a more interesting question as to whom one holds accountable for those decisions. So far, no one has.

 

Wow! We have some of the "inside" cronies with the scoop. All I can say is this place is truly rotten! What they describe (scapegoating) is the way this place was run from the begining. From a field perspective...go ahead and ask the EDs who were here as DMs in the beginning. This place seemed real attractive with all of those young "leaders". Oh...look at how you the CEO is...the President...the VPs...bla bla bla. Bullshit! We did not realize at the time that they were laughing. There ivy league consultant crew laughed at those with "experience". There was no way that there was anything that the "field" knew that the consultant crew could not easily figure out. Half of the time spent inside was debating with diseased ridden bunch on basic sales principles.

That's ok...they promoted some DMs to EDs...afterall...this bunch wants their fresh batch of scapegoats! They were forced to oust Tom, then they appointed that professional loser Billy D VP (then announce he was on a rotation at the end...really...a rotation...for a 63 year old?) now Diane. She will be the next scapegoat. No ivy league. Non consultant.

There is still plenty disease left to cut out: fikry, niru,Martin Peters, Vas, herring...

Hey herring how did the military go for you? Especially seeing you were supposed to turn it all around. You know...the last person to run it...the one that was forced out...was doing such a terrible job. It should have been easy for your uptight, consultant, ivy league brain to handle. This bunch is major part of this diseased culture. Including those miserable asses that were shown the door or ran once they found there sponsor was no longer going to protect them.

 

I would say that this organization is broken at every level, but that would imply that at one time it was together.

 

Dunkin's future is dunking as Ginger is leaving NVD to go there. Is NVD the place where Novartis Execs go before they are forced to exit?

 

As an earlier post said, "like rats off a sinking ship".

Andrin must be feeling really lonely about now - as a philosopher might say "naked before God"

 

where is Ray? saving the world, and vas, for clinical logistics? where else, free plane ticket, free lodging and food and drinks . . . . . . at the NVD Region NA National Sales Meeting in Phoenix where else!

 

with the planned move and the upcoming official announcement as well as other upcoming events, there is a tsunami of shit coming NVD's way and there is no almost no there to help Andrin deal with it

 

Just in! Live feed from the National Sales Meeting....

I want to thank Vas for all he did as President...blah blah blah...I'm excited to be here...blah blah blah...you guys did a great job last year....blah blah blah...we have a lot to look forward to in 2012...blah blah blah...there's no place I'd rather be then here at NVD...blah blah blah...Menveo has a bright future...We have a great pipeline...we have the clinical data...don't worry about contracts...there's enough business from GSK and VFC to meet our goals...HR will not fire you if you do not perform...blah blah blah...I love Diane Rogers legs...blah blah blah...can I have a drink?...blah blah blah...oh, screw the drink...can I have a bottle????...OK, meeting's over...let's go to the bar...Andrin's buying!!!!...yeah, yeah, yeah...oh crap, Andrin is passed out in the corner...somebody grab his AmEx...see you in the morning for aerobics at 6am in the lobby...anybody single around here???...anybody married that wishes they were single???...I hope everyone enjoyed the first day of the meeting...today we're going to review the new marketing pieces...oh shit, we've realized that we've run out of good things to say about Menveo and that our customers have realized that our product offers no real benefit over Menactra...blah blah blah...we'll be having a contest to see who can come up with our next great tag line for Menveo...we have a winner..."Menveo, for when you want to make your nurses lives miserable"...I Love It!!! With that we'll be increasing this years sales goal to $400 million...oh, did I mention that we didn't get the infant indication??? blah, blah, blah...where's that freakin' bottle from yesterday? Are we done yet? Oh, we have decided to change the name of the RVBL's...oops I mean RMAM's...to RWHC or Real Waste of Head Count...Where's Nima??? Anybody seen Nima???...Ok, field trip everyone...we're going to NJ...What??? Yep, since we're we're not contributing enough to the companies bottom line they're bringing us under pharma...but I like Cambridge...too bad...you'll have to find another job...but who's going to hire me after working here...good question!...god this place sucks...Sanofi's not so bad after all...Menactra looks like freakin Lipitor compared to this piece of crap...blah blah blah...bottle? where the hell is my bottle??? Diannnnne!

 

Well, I know of 2 people, make that 3 people who will not have to look for jobs or move. Vas, Ginger and currently Ray's biggest worry is how to get Novartis to include Rossetta Stone Italian in his relocation package! Oh, well, I bet Vas will sign off on any drinks that Ray buys us suckers while he is there with us in Phoenix. Thanks Vas! That will make us all feel better about getting recktally abused by Novartis while you soak up the new job and prep yourself for your next gig.