Geron

Quote

anonymous said:
If I were an investor, this is what I would look for from a pharma company. The sales force is the major driver of sales, especially at launch. But, you have to have the good reps, these reps are extremely hard to find. What do those look like. Most have over 10 years of Oncology. They constantly keep up with the clinical data and most do this on their own. They read the NCCN, ASCO reviews, reimbursement, GPO, etc... These reps are vital and are the highest paid in the industry. Their confidence in the clinical understanding of the data gains them access to doctors who have spent years training and it's these reps that have to convince the physician that their product is the best for their patients. One challenge for a company their confidence and demand at other companies is high.

A company that gets these reps has to pay them and make the bonus attractive to keep them. You want these reps excited to go out and challenge doctors every day to use the drug they represent. Good companies understand this and they entertain them at meetings and encourage recognition. Good companies want them to leave a meeting feeling energized and excited to get up in the morning to push the product they sale. They are willing to take a chance on a start up because they know there is a financial incentive, stock potential, and a culture of being part of the best.

Now, what happens if you hire these individuals, they attend a meeting and the meeting has zero recognition. They are preached at and shamed by telling them that they failed at launch. They get goals that are so big the opportunity for financial success is limited. How do you think that rep feels when they leave that meeting?

When that rep get's back home, they know they can't hit their goal and they feel the pressure of not having a value to the company. A recruiter calls and guess what, they answer the phone. They act like everything is fine and then the leave. Many leave at the same time. You are still in a launch and nobody is selling your drug. By the time those leave and you hire new reps that at this point are the bottom of the barrel do you think that company will be successful? Smart leaders understand this, so my question to you, "Is JZ a smart leader?"
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LOL..this sounds like it was written by an entitled big pharma whiner. Seriously, recognition? you need your little pat on the back to be motivated. grow up and do your job. Good oncology reps are a dime a dozen and the ones that need recognition are exactly the kind you don't need.
 


anonymous said:
LOL..this sounds like it was written by an entitled big pharma whiner. Seriously, recognition? you need your little pat on the back to be motivated. grow up and do your job. Good oncology reps are a dime a dozen and the ones that need recognition are exactly the kind you don't need.
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you just proved the point of why this company will fail!
 


anonymous said:
If I were an investor, this is what I would look for from a pharma company. The sales force is the major driver of sales, especially at launch. But, you have to have the good reps, these reps are extremely hard to find. What do those look like. Most have over 10 years of Oncology. They constantly keep up with the clinical data and most do this on their own. They read the NCCN, ASCO reviews, reimbursement, GPO, etc... These reps are vital and are the highest paid in the industry. Their confidence in the clinical understanding of the data gains them access to doctors who have spent years training and it's these reps that have to convince the physician that their product is the best for their patients. One challenge for a company their confidence and demand at other companies is high.

A company that gets these reps has to pay them and make the bonus attractive to keep them. You want these reps excited to go out and challenge doctors every day to use the drug they represent. Good companies understand this and they entertain them at meetings and encourage recognition. Good companies want them to leave a meeting feeling energized and excited to get up in the morning to push the product they sale. They are willing to take a chance on a start up because they know there is a financial incentive, stock potential, and a culture of being part of the best.

Now, what happens if you hire these individuals, they attend a meeting and the meeting has zero recognition. They are preached at and shamed by telling them that they failed at launch. They get goals that are so big the opportunity for financial success is limited. How do you think that rep feels when they leave that meeting?

When that rep get's back home, they know they can't hit their goal and they feel the pressure of not having a value to the company. A recruiter calls and guess what, they answer the phone. They act like everything is fine and then the leave. Many leave at the same time. You are still in a launch and nobody is selling your drug. By the time those leave and you hire new reps that at this point are the bottom of the barrel do you think that company will be successful? Smart leaders understand this, so my question to you, "Is JZ a smart leader?"
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To be clear there are two distinct issues here that need to be understood. Reps did not fail at launch. They delivered over quota. Even with the goal posts/quota changing each day, they delivered and did amazing. All this with a misc j code, no marketing support and no medical affairs support.

Because JZ. JH and DW do not understand this drug or market, they took it upon themselves to apply overstated data in each line and doubled the lives indicated, thus inflating the goals, data and projections for 2025. They were told this was not accurate and would not only overstate potential, but would be at risk for off label promotion. They then attempted to intimidate anyone who disagreed with them and remove those individuals from the org. They got caught. Their egos never allowed them to realize they could not fool the field and others who know this market, these HCPs, these patients and this drug. They foolishly thought everyone would fall in line. Nope. No one is going to jeopardize their own job or a patient or HCP to satisfy JZ, JH and DW’s greed and narcissism.

If they are not removed from this org immediately, Geron will fail before year end. This is not a threat. This is the real scenario. They have lost the field. They aren’t trusted and have no place here after the dishonest and malicious things they’ve done.

Ask the reps about the new IC plan which all of a sudden has an entirely different set of data that was sent to them by compliance with no explanation. They are trying to cover their assess. Too late.
 


JZ f'ed the majority of reps who worked hard last year with an impossible to reach goal in Q1. Huge slap in the face. Co should have kept a nat'l goal but sometimes the best lesson learned is the hardest. No one is going to work hard now for no incentive payout.
 


anonymous said:
JZ f'ed the majority of reps who worked hard last year with an impossible to reach goal in Q1. Huge slap in the face. Co should have kept a nat'l goal but sometimes the best lesson learned is the hardest. No one is going to work hard now for no incentive payout.
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All of those things are true and valid. What many aren’t seeing is the work ahead of reps and others as they will have a monumental challenge to remove the stigma around any hesitancy to use this drug given Geron, as a whole, will have to accept the responsibility and backlash from the HCP community who may feel hesitant to use this drug given the issues created by allowing an incompetent CCO to publicly dismantle an organization and the promising therapy Imetelstat offers.

If Geron went to the public trading market with overstated indications, do HCPs still trust Geron?

All the damage done by Jim Ziegler, Jim Hassard and Dawn Winn appears to be signed off by HR, Compliance, The Board, CEO, CFO and more.

Granted 3 of the 5 above are defendants in a class action lawsuit, what do all the rest have to say?

Don’t think for a second that Luspa is not using this to downgrade Imetelstat.

Congrats Geron, you hired fools to fool you. What is Geron’s next move? Let’s hope it’s taking a firm stance against this type of corruption. Time to get rid of the incompetence.
 


anonymous said:
LOL..this sounds like it was written by an entitled big pharma whiner. Seriously, recognition? you need your little pat on the back to be motivated. grow up and do your job. Good oncology reps are a dime a dozen and the ones that need recognition are exactly the kind you don't need.
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This is what JZ thinks. Question, if oncology reps are a dime a dozen, why do interviews, in fact why not hire a sales force from a contract sales force. These are the reps that actually offer, "reach and frequency" since your obviously stupid, I'll spell it out for you. Motivation and pats on a back are part of something called "a culture" the culture of the company is what good reps strive for and successful companies are made of!
 




Gerons market cap is totally unrealistic. Anil was bought out for $15 million because he didn’t talk nice . Chip was and is a failure and the head of HR never worked in pharma and is a dumb as a rock. Sales were never ever going to go above $400 million and Geron doesn’t even own its own manufacturin. By the way Paula in marketing is going to get fired next.
 


anonymous said:
Gerons market cap is totally unrealistic. Anil was bought out for $15 million because he didn’t talk nice . Chip was and is a failure and the head of HR never worked in pharma and is a dumb as a rock. Sales were never ever going to go above $400 million and Geron doesn’t even own its own manufacturin. By the way Paula in marketing is going to get fired next.
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If Dawn Bir doesn’t actually get this dumpster fire extinguished and get rid of Zeigler and Hassard, it actually won’t matter who they fire, as it will all be over. I’m surprised there is any money to do anything with all the useless roles they’ve hired in the last 6 months and the amount of useless people they keep around. HR definitely is awful as is Compliance and Finance. Comm Ops is useless and they now have 7 people in that department. Laughable for a 50 territory US based company with over inflated goals. Geron has no idea how to handle problems and just lets problematic employees stay and fester like a staph infection. Geron has unfortunately turned into a steaming pile of garbage.
 


The Jimbo twins are parasites that will nibble on Geron's dead corpse until there is nothing left to nibble on. Almost every KAM I know is looking for a new job and praying for a buyout. The company screwed the sales team with high priced stock option grants so none of us has skin in the game and will gladly accept any similar paying gig to end this misery. Any other mgmt team has to be 10X better than the dolts here at Geron. Looking forward to seeing the post 4/22 exodus!
 


I was on a team that was looking to acquire Geron about a year ago but the price that the CEO wanted plus the golden parachutes of almost everyone made it a losing proposition. Of course the main issue was the failure to acknowledge the limited sales potential coupled with a market cap that was in the twilight zone.
 


anonymous said:
The Jimbo twins are parasites that will nibble on Geron's dead corpse until there is nothing left to nibble on. Almost every KAM I know is looking for a new job and praying for a buyout. The company screwed the sales team with high priced stock option grants so none of us has skin in the game and will gladly accept any similar paying gig to end this misery. Any other mgmt team has to be 10X better than the dolts here at Geron. Looking forward to seeing the post 4/22 exodus!
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4/22 exodus?
 


anonymous said:
I was on a team that was looking to acquire Geron about a year ago but the price that the CEO wanted plus the golden parachutes of almost everyone made it a losing proposition. Of course the main issue was the failure to acknowledge the limited sales potential coupled with a market cap that was in the twilight zone.
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We met with them a little under a year ago too... They seemed to think they were undervalued at $5. It would be hilarious if they turned down an offer for that or more...
 




anonymous said:
When the new leadership team keeps telling you that we underperformed at Launch and blames it on the sales team you lose faith in them. We are rare disease and have a very limited indication. What if those new goals aren't aligned with our indication? When you have a leadership team that doesn't actually know the product (As proved on his investor calls) Hiring him created a shitshow and turned a decent culture into a primary care model, you lose faith. This company hired some of the best in the industry and they don't need to be micromanaged, these are the same reps that other companies are begging to have on their team. Those reps also know their worth and due to their history of performance expect reasonable goals and pay for performance. This is a Launch where insurance providers, medicare, medicaid have to load in the system, especially when we launched with a generic code. Doctors have to also understand where they can use it based on our limited indication. The mere fact that many of us were successful with a generic code, shows the quality of reps you have working for you. I can tell you this, these issues can't be fixed with Reach and Frequency!

I'll predict something simple based on my years of successful experience at other companies. This is what's going to happen at this company, unfortunately good reps will leave (Remember, they are in high demand) All reps talk to each other and they know other reps in their geography. When potential candidates call these reps, they will be honest. You know what that answer will be "You don't want to go there, Leadership is clueless and they don't understand the market. Stay away and wait for something else, goals are too high and you are treated like primary care!" So you are still in a launch and can't find mediocre reps to fill the territory. You may get a bunch of primary care reps with little oncology experience who approach the job of stopping by and dropping off literature that never gets back to doctors. Who knows, they may actually respond to your "Reach and Frequency" model.

This company hired reps who are comfortable challenging doctors due to the years of learning Oncology through the years. We have doctors numbers and have access where many in the industry don't. Good luck hitting your number then! I hope you like trying to justify your lack of sales to the street because that's where your headed.
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Agree with most of what you said. In regard to goals… should never have had territory goals in the 3rd Q of a launch and first Q with a perm J code.
No matter how good your relationship some simply won’t buy with a misc. J
 


anonymous said:
The Jimbo twins are parasites that will nibble on Geron's dead corpse until there is nothing left to nibble on. Almost every KAM I know is looking for a new job and praying for a buyout. The company screwed the sales team with high priced stock option grants so none of us has skin in the game and will gladly accept any similar paying gig to end this misery. Any other mgmt team has to be 10X better than the dolts here at Geron. Looking forward to seeing the post 4/22 exodus!
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Want to fix it!!?

Pay KAM’s at 100% IC through 2025…

Reprice those options that they ran up to $3.90

Have Med affairs get off their ass

Get a new marketing team

Develop KOL’s

Get out of the way and let the KAM’s work

And get rid of the wacky warm and fuzzy fos HR lady
 


So JZ has convinced someone that everyone except him needs to go. Too bad because the guy who just interviewed for CEO is going to boot his ass too. JZ is a back stabbing know it all.
 


Pissed Geronite said:
Want to fix it!!?

Pay KAM’s at 100% IC through 2025…

Reprice those options that they ran up to $3.90

Have Med affairs get off their ass

Get a new marketing team

Develop KOL’s

Get out of the way and let the KAM’s work

And get rid of the wacky warm and fuzzy fos HR lady
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We asked Chip about KOLs a couple of months ago lol. He said they didn't need them b/c docs "understand the story". His problem seemed to be that he was only paying attention to academic centers.

We spoke to Dawn recently & she strongly implied that the issue w/ launch is that they focused too much on academic centers early on, where launch started great, but realized a bit too late that they're going to hit a wall by continuing to drive penetration there. Maybe a handful of patients per doc were really good candidates for imetelstat, and they got them on drug pretty quickly. Now they hit a wall there, they're trying to spread out to smaller oncology practices.

But she was very vague about the details... I somehow doubt that the issue is "well we didn't tell our account managers to spread out, so they didn't. Now they will".
 







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