The Medicines Company in a Nutshell

I am a critical care specialist (sales rep) for The Medicines Company and have been here for 3 years. I was here before the "Aventis Invasion" as it seems to be called, and I know all of the management pretty well. Many former employees and competitors seem to have nasty opinions of TMC (which can be expected), and many people will think my side is biased (which it is to some degree), but I hope to give my open, honest evaluation of the company for those who want to know. You can obviously reply, but this is my first and last post on this site - I will not be checking back.

TMC was started by Clive Meanwell, MD - a hematologist. He saw an opportunity to buy a promising drug (Angiomax) from Biogen - who could only afford to keep one of its two drugs in the early 90's. The other one's sales are over one billion, so they made the right choice of which one to sell. Clive and his venture capital backers slowly but surely invested in more and more studies as the data continued to come back positive. The sales force grew and got more talented, and the need for more experience in upper management arose. The "Aventis Invasion" as it is called, really refers to the hiring of John Kelley and Doug Randall as the heads of operations and sales, and the hiring of many talented people they knew and brought over. I will not say I know these men exceptionally well, but I have interacted with them on dozens of occasions - many times one on one. They are both sincere men who try to do the right things for the patients, the employees, and the stockholders. They are also both very adept at their jobs.

TMC is growing, and with that comes a lot of growing pains. Some employees who liked the small biotech environment feel like we are getting too big. As the talent level rises with each expansion, reps and managers feel more pressure to become better as well. Those who struggle, or those who do very well as reps but are not qualified to move up become frustrated and jump ship. According to many of the posts, we must be the only company to ever have experienced this. Also, this company is one of the few courageous enough to admit when they have made a hiring mistake and fix it. Some people are "promoted to their level of incompetence" and asked to step back down, or they decide to leave outright.

The bottom line is TMC is a well run company with employees from top to bottom who care about patients, display integrity, and work hard. I am not implying that everyone does everything perfectly all the time - if your company does please let me know where I can invest - but I am implying that if anyone has had reasons to be skeptical, it is me, yet I remain very happy working here even after all of the changes.

To those who have issues with TMC I would say just look at the message board for TMC on this website. When I looked I saw that about 80% of the posts were trying to get information on how to get a job here. Either the world if full of sadists who want to work with horrible drugs and for horrible bosses, or maybe it is a reasonably good company to work for. I am not saying I would not leave if something better came along, I'm just saying I have worked for much, much worse in the past.

 

I worked for TMC and found them to be no better than used car salesmen. Oops.... One of your managers actually was a used car salesman. Anyway, I was asked numerous times to promote off label with absolutely no clinical data to back me up. The approach was to make a sale with no concern for the patient only to drive dollars into the company. I was asked to call on Interventional Radiology with no indicaton, dosage information, pertinent clinical data, or outcomes data. TMC only stated that there was money to be made there, and that we should go get it. I was actually told that other reps are making lots of money doing this and that if I didn't call on this department of the hospital then the would hire someone who would. I left.

 

To the Original Poster: great post! I couldn't agree with you more. I have worked for a few large pharma companies, and by far this is the one of the best. There are definitely some growing pains, but that it normal and to be expected.

As for the second person who replied and said their "used car salesman boss" asked them to promote off-label, I'm honestly very surprised. If that's truly the case, that manager should be reported. NO ONE I know at TMC would tolerate that behavior. In fact, my boss and coworkers are on the opposite end of conservative when it comes to handling questions about HORIZONS or other off label uses. There is always a written request and a paper trail to back up any requests.

 

TMC sounds like a great company. Do they look at resumes submitted to them directly? (I've been unable to find a TMC rep in my area to help me out and the recruiter for the expansion doesn't return phone calls/emails so I just applied at the corp. website.) I would hope I would be contacted since I have 7 years hospital sales exp, all of it in Cardiology...

 

A few things you may want to consider before joining this company: 1) Angiomax is at its peak as far as sales 2) the patent extension bill that TMC is trying to get through Congress is a dead issue (won't pass so they will lose I believe 4 years of sales) 3) Cleveprex will get beat out as a replacement for Plavix (I heard some sort of rumor that another company that has a generic Plavix replacement is closer to getting it out to the market before MDCO....if anyone can confirm this please feel free) and 4) the stock price has basically been flat for quite a while and coupled with the debt they are taking (new building, take over of European distribution) this smells of trouble.

 

This last post was funny to read and to clarify some mis-information you included in your post, here it is:

1) Angiomax is close to its patent life, however, there is a pending expansion of its indication with the FDA (at the moment), which would increase sales of angiomax (it is not at its peak!). There has also been a "practice changing trial" published recently, which should also result in increase usage in the cath lab. Angiomax will continue to grow, expect that!

2) Cleviprex, not "Cleveprex", is not competing with plavix. Cleviprex treats acute hypertension and does not compete with platelet inhibitors. Cleviprex has great data from phase III trials, which should help put this drug on the map after approval later this year.

3) Cangrelor, is the upcoming IV platelet inhibitor that will be competing in the market with plavix and any other antiplatelet for that matter. Expect good things from this agent if approved, based on some very promising phase III trials. Go to the heart.org or clinicaltrialresults.org to hear more about this market and the potential for this new agent.

4) Expansion of a sales force (almost doubling) is a sign that things are looking positive and growth of the product portfolio means more jobs, more productivity, better earnings and a nice place to be during this down-turning time of the industry. Take a look at all the big boys, they are down-sizing/re-organizing, not here at MedicinesCo.

 

Phase 3 trials are generally about 2 years from market launch .... assuming a relatively clean FDA approval process ( something that is less propitious in the post Vioxx era of drug approvals).

Don"t think that these approvals are imminent, Boys and Girlies !!

............... OK, now you can take a drink of your cherry Kool-Aid !

 

You are quite the mis-informed one. If you were to read press-releases on potential competitors (e.g. Cleviprex or Angiomax) you would see that an NDA was submitted several months ago for Cleviprex and an SNDA was submitted around the same time period for expanded Angiomax indication. Try reading before making false negative comments and accusing people of drinking company kool-aide. You obviously have your head burried in the sand or just plain ol' ignorant egg thrower from outside the interventional/acute cardiac care market.

 

Commencing phase III trials does not indicate that the FDA will approve within the year - quite the contrary - the trials could take a year or more and then the data needs to be locked and analyzed and then prepared in submission form to the FDA who can take upwards of 18 months to look at and approve or deny. The PDUFA date is the more important date and given the Vioxx mess, there is little chance that these drugs will see the light of day in 2008

 

I'm not sure of your point. Phase III trials have "commenced" and a new drug application has been filed (the phase III data has been collected and submitted to the FDA in the NDA)...

 

I have seen witnessed blatent attempts of ignorance but you my amigo, take the cake. This is only my second time to this site and this visit only confirms that the industry is finally cleaning up its mess with hiring people like you. Some people speak anonymously just to be heard. I only wish this site would require people to reveal themselves. There is no value on this site when you get people like yourself that spout nonsense. You're the guy who asks physicians to write your product for the next 5 patients...aren't you!

 

How bout that pending label expansion now, do the words "NOT APPROVABLE" ring a bell. ROFLMAO

 

typical....take a closer look at point 1) ACS pending indication was only part of the point, the other is the practice changing trial "Horizons", which was published May 23rd and there is a buzz across the nation on using Bivalirudin to save lives in STEMI patients. The ACS indication is not "dead in the water", but I can tell you this, Angiomax is continually growing and that is the summary for point 1) of a four point explanation for why Medicines Company is the place to be right now.

 

Dude, you aren't drinking the kool aid you are smoking it. Angiomax apparently will not be getting ACS as much as I hate your company I do believe the data is as good as PURSUIT and they received indication, but today is a different FDA, so it is dead. Cleverplex or whatever was passed on by the FDA. Still can't bury 25% A-fib. Cangelor is too far out and finally Angiomax is losiong patent in 18 months.

Be reasonable, everything in life and drugs runs it course. Clive and MDCO has run its. Protect yourself and your family and start looking.

 

Clive just announced layoffs!!

 

Clive was a weird dude. Really strange cat.

Anyway… he’s getting old. REALLY OLD. Trying to play in the Board of Directors circuit. But I don’t think he’ll be with us much longer. Hopefully he gets to spend a lot of his money before he kicks the bucket.