To Whom It May Concern :

It’s incredibly disingenuous to tell me about culture as you see it. No one in a leadership position can possibly know what it’s like to be in the field, day to day, with the threat of viral exposure, incredibly complex and nuanced compliance regulations, mandated activity metrics, pressure of competition, road hazards, and now the amazingly insensitive and tone-deaf threat of loss of job.

That’s just a snapshot of the fields culture.

So stop. You look foolish.

Second, being told how fun this meeting will be (5 times by my count) only to be met with the restructuring news is unbelievably disconnected. The moment John and Peter (the real ones, not the insulting taped versions) mentioned the possibility I’d lose my job, I checked out.

No, this isn’t fun. By anyone’s definition.

Finally, if you (leadership) think you’re getting a clear and accurate picture of virtual activity in the field you’re either naive or ambivalent. In either case, it must be a special kind of affirmation of your self-importance and wisdom to sit in judgement of people keeping your lights on. All the while questioning how we do what we do. When I imagine it’s been decades ( if at all) either one of you stood in front of a stressed- out doctor at a CMHC with crazy all around and tried to be impactful.

Please stop. You look foolish.

Again

 

Well said my friend
Speculation abounds given that u offered zero clarity regarding the future
That’s not leadership

 

Very well said indeed

 

You guys seem to forget that we are “still building the plane as we fly”. We have one wing on the fuselage and 1 wheel for landing, but we are giving it a world class effort, and that’s all that matters.

I think that Dunsire realizes that old me-too psych drugs, a DOA migraine drug, and a $200k a year soon-to-be-generic, ain’t going to deliver the rev we need. Also, the pipeline chest is damn empty. Add on government pressure to lower the cost of criminally expensive pharmaceuticals, and you have one hellluva disaster waiting in the wings for Lundbeck and other small non-inventive companies.

Guys, it’s time for a major overhaul at Lundbeck. Many on here have talked about how 2 reps per territory is stupid, and giving all the psych drugs to whomever is left makes sense. Also, there is so much white space out there that in no way could justify a rep, that it’s amazing! I don’t give a rat’s ass what they do with Northera and Vyepti, but they should be given to one team together. As small virtual team made up of some type of pharma retirees, CSO reps, mom’s who want to stay at home, makes sense. Of course, they couldn’t expect the same salary as a territory rep gets.

If your brains haven’t turned to mush, get busy testing the waters for another company. Times a wasting !

 

What you’re saying is fine, but it belongs in a different thread. The OP was making the car that hypocrisy is run amok here. And leadership is colossally out of touch.

 

Collossally out of touch to say that during the opening.

 

Not exactly a new finding about Lundbeck.

 

“Keeping your lights on?” That’s the whole point, reps that insist on sitting at home rather than masking up and going out to do their job aren’t of any value to the company. Peter has been keeping YOUR lights on for 6 months, but it has to stop somewhere.

 

We all know the above is accurate. We don’t want to admit it. We have grown comfortable to working only a couple of hours a day, and they thoughts of getting in the car, driving to offices that 2 other people have been in a few days before, talking about mediocre drugs, makes us sick.

Lundbeck made another horrible decision buying Alder Pharma for $2 billion. Northera LOE next year will hurt. Trump or Biden will definitely doing something to negatively impact pharma profits. Lundbeck is a business, not a place to provide jobs. We provide a service so to speak, and they pay us for that service.

The virus has ruined this country. Docs are now accustomed to getting samples (all they needed us for anyway) w/o seeing us. The day of old fashioned style sales teams are going away. An app driven by AI will one day have a major impact on pharma selling, and it will inevitably be here before you know it. Lundbeck needs to go back to their old model contracting the sales of their drugs out to another company, or a contract sales team of some kind. All of this is will be bad for pharma sales teams.

You have time to starting preparing now. The hourglass on your Lundbeck employment has been turned over.

 

All the comments on this thread are spot on. There have been several posts on different Lundbeck threads predicting this would occur in Q4 since we went to work at home status back in March. The reality here is as said before:

1. We do NOT own the psych drugs and have been submissive bitches to Takeda and Otsuka since those contractual marriages occurred which has been deplorable at best. Neither of those companies give two shits about our alliance agreements and you see who has stuck w/ it out in the field non-stop since mid-June! Takeda’s decision to all stay home until probably 2021 is fucking ridiculous, yet WE, Lundbeck are expected to grow THEIR drug share at the worst possible time all the while they keep electronically feeding more samples locking us out of F2F calls and sabotaging our potential to get new and repeat scripts via MSC. That damn thing should’ve been shut down back in June rather than allowing our providers to continue milking the system and resist seeing us F2F. Then to hear our Takeda partners telling us for months and MOST RECENTLY they are NOT LOOKING at sales reporting b/c their getting paid the same as at goal has been a total slap in the face to US. And Otsuka’s back n forth stay at home policy has been a fiasco as well. What a snarky mentality there and again too many offices have been ridiculously oversampled electronically. It just amazes me how many of my offices are still ordering both products even when my Lundbeck partner and I have requested they only get samples F2F. Then my asshole ASM who has NOT been put in the field w/ any of us since before LUNA rails our asses weekly about the BI results and our goals leading up to the end of this fiscal year. I say, bitch to Lundbeck’s senior leadership and the Takeda managers for their lack of proper alliance ownership, NOT us.

2. When the monthly Covid surveys started in May, the virtual model was pushed upon us, all the weekly trackers started, and then came the required primary care calls as of July 1st; all those were our first warning signs a reorg was forthcoming. Yet on monthly calls w/ Peter, Kaya, John and Tres, reps were sending questions asking if all this was leading up to a possible reorg (bluntly put downsizing) or a demotion of some reps to virtual or primary care sales; it was TOTALLY IGNORED. Wonder why? Go figure?

3. Then we get the notice in August inviting us to Peter’s Town Hall on Nov.12th, leaving many of us questioning why is that being set up almost three months early? In Q4 and the week following our dog fight of a horrible presidential election. Hmmmmm, that smells like a reorg which historically the past three presidential election years has spawned an uproar in the Pharma industry downsizing right before the holidays. Sad at best for those 80,000+ reps affected over the past 12 years.

4. Then we hear Peter and John during the Tuesday opening virtual POA session finally blurt out Lundbeck will have a reorg. however, all the questions come pouring in and most were glossed over on purpose as to not totally upset the apple cart here when we still have the month of Oct to finish out this fiscal year. Again, during other parts of the POA Q&A sessions w/ Kaya & Tres, we were again withheld basic information like -

When will this reorg happen?
Will some reps lose their jobs?
Will some reps be moved to PC or virtual?
Will some territories change?
Can we carry over some of our PTO to 2021 w/ all that’s fine on this year?

All these questions were left unanswered and the holidays - end of the year are quickly approaching.

So fellow Lundy colleagues, we have had multiple warning signs as stated above and it is our responsibility to move forward quickly before this company ship crashes to aggressively be looking for our next jobs. Most other specialty jobs are paying $15k-$20k more than here @ Lundbeck anyways + targeted UNCAPPED bonuses @ $48k. Who in the hell wants to fo backwards being demoted to a primary care rep or a remote virtual sales specialist after many of us have had years of specialty experience? Decide as you may to sit and wait for your fate here putting your heads in the sand, or aggressively be applying for other jobs NOW being prepared for the bomb to prolly drop here the week following Peter’s Nov 12th Town Hall and right before we all sit down to count our blessings w/loved ones on T-Day.

Very sad for Lundbeck which once was a great co. Good luck to all!

 

Right on w/ the poster directly above. U nailed it! I would also add if you were closely listening, twice it was mentioned during our POA sessions w/ senior mgmt that an outside firm is working w/ Lundbeck making recommendations for the reorg. What they failed to say is that the outside firm is prolly ZS Associates in Chicago; the communist liberal consulting firm all Pharma companies use to downsize as a third party source so they cannot be sued by those laid off. ZS Associates just throws darts @ the national map, makes recommendations on those to cut, and charges the Pharma companies huge fees for their consulting fees.

I’ve been at other Pharma companies and watched recent P-Club winners get cut. Even those who had just returned from their awards trip less than a week before. Most of the time it’s anyone’s guess how the decisions are made, although some are cut due to admin issues and / or bad sales numbers. At any rate, having an outside consulting firm involved is not a good thing for us. Just saying.

 

Cuts have absolutely zero to do with performance. It’s all about maximizing money saved without getting sued for discrimination.

Frequently they target over the hill, over paid, white male reps and then sprinkle in enough junior people to make it look balanced.

Just be glad if you have a job come November. We are heading into the Trump-COVID depression.

 

Don’t get to far down in the dumps. People are hiring, and sometimes at $20k more a year than Lundbeck will pay. It will all work out.

The reps at Lundbeck, including myself, are or have become, extraordinarily lazy. I know reps that have doubled dipped for years while “working” at Lundbeck selling genetic testing, and the company turned a blind eye to them after discovering it! Lying about calls is rampant because they simply won’t see us (during Covid) or don’t need to see us because of all the other reps calling on them (pre and during Covid).

From RSD to ASM, we have the most incompetent management I have ever seen in all my years in pharmaceutical sales. Our R&D has been a never ending line of failures. Stefan was one of the few that had business sense, and he quit early in the game. Kare screwed us and padded his bank account, then quit. And then came Dunsire with her less than illustrious history. But in fairness to her, look what she has to work with, PA, JA, and #3.

Be honest with yourselves. We simply, and no company for that matter, do not need all the redundant coverage we have now. We have territories with massive amounts of white space. Takeda has bigger fish to fry other than Trintellix, and Otsuka is run by third rate idiots. A virtual sales team makes sense, or a CSR type set up, backing up a full time territory rep. We will also be dealing, at some point, with government price controls.

A massive layoff like 30% is extremely unlikely. If you haven’t started looking yet, and most of us have not, you are late to the party. This industry is evolving right in front of our eyes. Complacency is your worst enemy.

 

Stefan was the best senior leader we had, and he knew this place would go down hill years ago when he left. Looks like I am in the minority when I say I don’t think the reorg will be as severe as some suspect. Only time will tell. I have an interview tomorrow with another company, and I am sure the competition will be strong. I don’t want to seem desperate, but I am. Good luck in your job searches.

 

Popcorn time for sure. Looking forward to seeing who gets cut.

 

Totally agree with several above that Lundbeck has been mismanaged for some time and had been a total failure to owning our own pipeline. Alliance agreements with other companies never go well long term and especially here now where we are having to lead the pack w/ Takeda all at home till next year and Otsuka deciding wk to wk where their reps can / cannot be outt in the field. It’s ok for us to be out there taking our lives @ risk into the trenches of this pandemic daily, but both of those companies are perfectly fine operating at a different standard. Ridiculous at best!

And what about all the ASMs sitting @ home in their offices since mid-March wanting us out there while they connect virtually on field rides. Has that not become the biggest joke of all time in Pharma only to prove their importance is lame AF moving forward.

What should happen in this reorg., (HELLO ZS ASSOCIATES TAKE NOTE,) is a big house cleaning of ASMs and the ones remaining should be assigned 15-20 reps each. They have time to burn and why should they not have to step up more? Hell, AMs are expected to be doing 5-7 F2F and 1-2 virtual daily and SpeakerNets, so why not increase the ASMs responsibilities too. They can just as easily manage 15 to 20 reps as they can 8 to 10 with everything done virtually and on district Zoom calls anyways. Not to mention the huge savings to the company financially. Did you take note of that ZS Associates? I’ll send you my consulting fee for that no-brainer suggestion.

 

Sounds like someone’s a little scaredy-cat when it comes to manager ride alongs LOL

 

I don’t think anyone is worried about the feckless flatulent managers

 

Worried about the idiots you call ASM’S? Hardly. You guys are worth less than useless. Since I have been with Lundbeck, out of the 4 managers that I have had, only one was half useful. Lundbeck’s lower management is totally pathetic! I have seen and heard of what some managers get away with, and it’s incredible! Things that would get other managers terminated immediately! But Old Lundbeck just puts A little band-aid over it and pretends nothing ever happened.

No, it’s hard to worry about someone that is so totally clueless about pharmaceutical selling and being a “leader “.

 

LmFao. Not a scaredy-cat at all to my manager or any other. And I will gladly have any manager ride with me any day of the week and on Sunday too. Fuck off!