The following was retrieved from www.pharmexec.com.
Mr Reidy was fired after his book was published by Eli Lilly.
While admittedly Jamie slacked his way though what was suppose to be a vocation, he did illustrate one point rather clearly- that pharmaceutical representatives are not needed at all:
Bad Rep? A Q&A with Jamie Reidy
By Ron Feemster
Jamie Reidy wrote the book on how to slack off as a pharma sales rep. Now, the sales manager's nightmare unveils more scams, sizes up the corporate selling culture—and reveals what finally made him care.
TO HEAR JAMIE REIDY TELL IT, HE'S ALWAYS BEEN THE SORT of slacker who succeeds. He did enough work to get decent grades in high school and at Notre Dame University, which he attended on an ROTC scholarship.
After graduation, First Lieutenant Reidy spent three years on easy duty, much of it in Japan, where he chafed at military discipline but stayed out of bunkers, except on the golf course.
When force reductions allowed him to leave the Army early, he jumped at the chance, even though he had no idea what his next job would be. Which is how he happened to be unemployed, living at his parents' New Jersey home, and answering the phone in boxer shorts when a Pfizer recruiter called.
Jamie Reidy
Reidy stumbled into a job at the world's largest pharmaceutical company, seduced more by the $40,000 starting salary than any desire to help patients. What he discovered there was an oddly
familiar military culture with rigorous training, rigid sales scripts, and an unyielding requirement to call on 40 doctors a week.
But he soon realized that no one checked up on him. He worked from home, and no one knew if he started his day at 10 a.m. or even went AWOL—as long as he made his quota and enough doctors signed for samples every week.
Within months, he had found a new way to spend weekdays at home in his boxers: He launched on the less-than-sterling career he chronicled in his tell-all book, Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman. He started work late and often took off at three in the afternoon.
He persuaded doctors to sign undated sample receipts, which allowed him to fake sales calls. Once, he traveled to London, England, without taking vacation time, even pretending to be in an Indiana parking lot when he returned his boss's calls.
Excerpt from Hard Sell
Of course, that only worked because he was good at selling pharmaceuticals. To his own surprise, he was promoted to Pfizer's new urology division, where he eventually—based on sales recorded two months after he quit—became the number-one Viagra sales rep in the nation.
In October of 2000, Reidy began a second career in pharmaceutical sales, which he took much more seriously. He often worked a full day selling oncology drugs for Eli Lilly, where he and his sales partner also reached number one in the country.
The company promoted him to oncology sales trainer—his favorite job in pharma—one he likens to the roving batting instructors of minor-league baseball. Lilly fired him when Hard Sell was published in March of this year.
His next book, about the Lilly oncology years, will be called Hard Feelings. Reidy lives in Manhattan Beach, California. He is writing a screenplay, and closing a deal for the movie rights to Hard Sell.
First, let's talk about the slacking. Are there stories about skipping work at Pfizer that aren't in the book? Could this book have been 500 pages long?
There are other stories I left out. Some of them I just forgot about. Like, I was at an Army reunion in Arkansas and my friend said, "What the hell? How come you didn't tell the story about the flowers?"
I had completely forgotten about our first Army reunion in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was a Friday and I was playing hooky, but I sent flowers to an office to celebrate their grand opening. I called the florist in Modesto, California, and placed the order there. So of course it looked like I went in the flower shop and ordered.
You went to Arkansas from California, and to feign being at this grand opening you called the local flower shop and had them deliver flowers? How did that go over? Didn't the doctors see through that?
No, they just thought: "That's so cool. Jamie Reidy sent flowers." My bosses never knew. I mean, they knew that I sent flowers. Because they had a sales receipt.
What have your friends in the industry said about your book?
One of my friends from Lilly called me up and said, "Reidy, You hit it on the nose, man. This book is hilarious. It's like reading my journal." And then he called me a bunch of names and said, "You ruined it for us all." He meant that nobody can work only 20 hours a week anymore.
I also heard from a district manager at another company who mailed me ten copies of my book to sign for everybody on his team. He wanted to show them that he knew all the tricks now, and that they shouldn't try to get away with anything. But he also said he thought there were some sales gems in there that they could learn from.
So are reps going to have to work more than 20 hours a week? How much has the job changed?
I've heard from people at Pfizer that they're totally cracking down on everything now. They are being a lot more vigilant and checking things out, possibly looking for different receipts. And then there's another old manager trick, which I hear they've used a couple times since the book came out. The manager calls you at lunchtime on Tuesday and says, "Hey, where are you going to be at one o'clock? I want to meet up with you." That is the ultimate panic attack right there.
You seem to have gone your own way on selling, too, by rejecting some of the regimented scripts and detailing procedures that Pfizer used, developing your own relationships with doctors, and trying to think on your feet. As far as you know, how do other people feel about doing things the company way?
I think there are two reactions. I think the public reaction is always, "Come on, we're grown-ups. We're smart, educated people. We can do our own thing. Don't baby us."
And people really push back on the script outwardly. But I think for a lot of people, the script makes the job even easier because you know exactly what you're supposed to say. And so now you've got this job where you're already programmed and you just—the phrase is "show up and throw up." You just regurgitate the sales pitch and the data that you've been taught to share.
And how well does that serve the company?
As my first boss always said, "Enthusiasm sells." And I would add that conviction sells. So if Pfizer or any company has spent thousands and thousands of dollars to come up with the marketing plan and the sales pitch, and you then take that and enthusiastically share it and don't make it sound like it's some canned spiel, that works.
If you can sort of flavor it a little bit, I think it helps the company, because they know exactly what they want us to say. If they have their soldiers talking the company line and the company's research is correct, then that should further sales.
Even when there are three or four people calling on the same doctor, talking about the same product and giving the same basic speech?
Now we run into problems. That's where doctors have caught on over the years and said, "Hey, this is all canned." Say another rep and I both call on Dr. Smith, and this Dr. Smith doesn't really pay attention to me. He's sorting his mail as I'm giving him my pitch.
And then the other rep comes in two weeks later and the doctor's got more time and he's listening to the detail and he's like, this all sounds really familiar. And I come in two weeks later and he says, "Wait a minute. This is the same stuff that other guy just told me."
That's when we start to look like storm troopers. I'm not a resource for that doctor, anymore. I'm just like everybody else. I'm the UPS guy dropping samples off. I'm a well-dressed caterer with lunch for the nurses.
So where is the solution? You were on the front lines. What do you think would work best?
I think that they should reinstate our ability to take doctors golfing, and to Laker games, and to Celine Dion shows. But, of course, they had to do away with that to make it look like we weren't buying the doctors' love, which is what we were doing, and what I am advocating.
Are you serious?
In all seriousness, I think the companies need to cut back the sales force by half. When I started, there were about 35,000 reps in America. And now I read there are between 90,000 and 100,000. Doctors are just fed up.
We need fewer reps, because now the value of every rep gets diminished. Once the doctor figures out that John, Jamie, Jenny, and Sheila are all going to tell him the same thing, then none of us have any value anymore, even though I used to be a valued source to him.
Now we're all the same and it doesn't matter which rep he sees. It actually doesn't matter if he sees anybody, because they're all going to give him the same company-sponsored line.
If you talk to reps who have been around for 15 or 20 years, they all lament the loss of the old days when they were able to sit down with a doctor and discuss the merits of each drug in treating the 57-year-old Hispanic woman with diabetes and a history of heart disease in her family. Reps were much more of a resource back then. Now we're just extensions of multibillion-dollar companies.
Do senior reps feel like they have to play this diminished role to keep their jobs?
The old guys question the mindset that you have to get, say, ten signatures a day for samples. There's that pressure when your boss comes back to you and reminds you that you only had 38 signatures last week. It drives the old guys crazy. They say, "Look, I'm a sales guy. My job is to drive sales. I'm not a sample guy."
There was a great story at Lilly. We didn't even have samples in the oncology division, but Lilly started pushing us to make more sales calls. We had to make five a day, which doesn't seem like anything.
But in oncology you've got to share data all the time, so you wait around for hours if you need to see somebody. So probably the most seasoned rep in the Lilly oncology division picks his boss up in the morning at 8:30 for a ride-along. He goes to a big office to start his day and has good discussions with five doctors. Then he drives the boss back to his hotel.
And the boss says, "What are we doing? " The rep says, "Oh, I'm done. All you care about is that I see five doctors. I just saw my five doctors." He wasn't being a smart-aleck. He was saying, "You won't fire me for this. I want to dramatically demonstrate what's going on at this company."
So the boss calls headquarters and says, "We've got a problem. What am I going to tell the guy? He's right. That's all we're asking for."
What did the company do?
Let's say they shifted focus. They said, "Listen, that five is a goal. We would like you to strive for that, but by all means don't avoid your biggest customer just because it always takes three hours and you have to get your five calls a day." So it was actually an awesome wake-up call. The reps of the country rejoiced.
You worked as a roving sales trainer, so you got to see a lot of different reps interact with doctors. How did you come to see the job differently?
The really interesting observation for me as a trainer—the second guy in the waiting room—was how in-the-way drug reps are, and how much we stand out. Patients know exactly what we're doing. I guess I sort of blocked it out as a rep, all the dirty looks you get from patients. It was really an eye-opener for me. I just felt, wow, we don't belong here.
Imagine you're in the doctor's office with your mom who has breast cancer. The doctor's an hour late, and while you're waiting two well-dressed people walk in with bags of M&Ms and chat it up with the nurses. Then they go back and they're back there for a half hour. You know why the doctor is late. And that gets very upsetting for people, especially when you're dealing with something as sensitive as cancer. Man, I'd be crawling in my skin to get out of there.
Another thing struck me about your book. On the one hand, you were the slacker guy with an ironic distance from his job. But on the other hand, you got pretty excited about your products. Where did that come from? How much of it was trained into you?
I think it came from the brainwashing that happens in training. And I got it more so at Pfizer than I did at Lilly, because the Pfizer training staff was so impressive, and the people they kept bringing in to speak to us were so impressive. They keep rolling out the next drug, which is the best, and here is why. So you learn everything—or at least you think you learn everything—about your competing drugs.
I will still to this day argue why Zithromax was the best antibiotic in America. I can still give you the five reasons why it's better than Biaxin. And I will argue to my dying day that Zoloft was a better drug than Prozac and Paxil. And don't even get me started on Zyrtec and Claritin.
But the great thing is, if you talk to people from Lilly, they'll say that Prozac was a way better drug than Zoloft, and boom, boom, boom, here's why. And the Biaxin people say the same thing. So I think it's just like you always think your school team is better—whether it really is or not. You get that spirit going, combined with a little data to support your position, and you've got a pretty strong start.
That might explain why doctors take much of what companies say with a grain of salt. Doctors say they want studies that were not funded by the pharmaceutical industry. As drug reps, you're only getting the data the company gives you, right?
Correct. Here's an interesting thing I never knew—and if you want to talk about being na and drinking the Kool-Aid, go ahead—I never knew that studies are done, but we don't see the results. That was news to me, and I don't know if I'm the lone idiot who didn't realize that. But to find out that all these trials were done, and the results were not released, that was certainly an eye opener.
But there was more than blind belief involved, wasn't there? At some point after you were hired at Lilly, at least, you started wanting to do your job: your real job of selling doctors and solving patients' problems. What changed?
I'll tell you what changed. When you walk into an oncology office, and you're in the back looking at patients hooked up to chemotherapy IV tubes, and you're listening to people with lung cancer cough, and you see people with no hair, and they're all shriveled up. You say to yourself, you know what? If you really believe in your drug, it's a good thing to get out there and try to help these patients. It's a very powerful experience to stand in the back of an oncology office.
Would you go back if you could, assuming that another company would hire you tomorrow?
In order to stay true to myself, I have to give this writing thing my full attention. I can be so easily distracted. But if I went back, I would only work in oncology.
That's really where it's at. You deal with the ultimate situation and try to discuss life and death. Once you've worked with oncologists, and seen what they're dealing with and the level of data they get into, then you really are an expert, and it's a lot more compelling to go to work every day.
So what would it have taken to get you to do your job at Pfizer?
I don't really know. It would have had to be something compelling like that, because it wasn't money. Money doesn't drive me. People who sell antidepressants will say, "Hey listen, that patient could have killed himself. I might save somebody's life." Okay, that's two iterations away. Someone went on my drug and lived longer directly because of it. Now that's something.
A breast cancer patient in Hawaii hugged me. And she thanked me. You would have thought I invented Gemzar. That was something I'll never forget.
Do you miss being a drug rep?
I certainly miss helping patients, because in spite of all the jokes I make in the book and all the heat that the industry takes in the media, you do get to help patients. Whether the doctors switch from Paxil to Zoloft and the patient does a lot better, or the patient goes on your lung-cancer chemotherapy and makes it to her granddaughter's wedding, you can really affect somebody's life. I miss that.
I find that I really miss the day-to-day human interaction of walking into the offices that are mine. I used to feel kind of like the TV character, Norm, when he walks into the bar at Cheers and everybody says, "Norm!"
You also started your career as a writer while you worked as a sales rep at Lilly. How long did it take you to write the book?
It probably took me three years but—well, it won't be a surprise since you read the book—I was really lazy about it. I would put it down for two months at a time. So it's tough to say with all the starts and stops how long it really took me.
Do you miss that lifestyle? Having the rep job with a regular paycheck, and writing the book in your spare time?
I do. Being a pharmaceutical salesman is the greatest day job in the world. Every aspiring artist, musician, and writer should become a drug rep, because you make a lot of money and you don't have to work. You know, you can get away with working 20 hours a week.
Jamie Reidy Relaxes under the pier For most of his career in pharma, Reidy focused on documenting work he didn't do. Now he goes to the beach without faking a sales call.
Jamie Reidy
Excerpt from Hard Sell
Showing posts with label pharmaceutical. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pharmaceutical. Show all posts
Monday, June 29, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Drug Rep. Manifesto
The word, ‘Manifesto’ is one of Latin origin, and means ‘to make public’. It’s an open statement of standards related to good behavior based on principles related to the intention of the author.
What will follow is not in any way to be interpreted by the reader as being absolute directives or rules you should adopt in order to be successful.
Nor am I, as a veteran ex-big pharmaceutical representative, suggesting the contents are an outline of what is considered an ideal pharmaceutical representative, and what is needed for your own success as you define this as a pharmaceutical representative.
So, these are some simple, yet possibly preferred, ideas I wish to offer to those who are pharmaceutical representatives related to the nature of their vocation, as well as the image of the industry of your employer, and how this can be improved:
Never park your free company car closest to the entrance of a doctor’s office or clinic. Obviously, both places treat sick people- some worse than others. Aim for the back of the parking lot. Exercise is good for you. Others need that ideal parking space more than you do. Show some consideration.
Upon entering a medical location, such as a doctor’s office, if you happen to notice more than one pharmaceutical representative sitting in what may be a small waiting room, leave immediately and return at another time. Do not be so insistent or persistent that you disrupt those in that waiting room who need to see the doctor much more than you do.
Conversely, a similar suggestion is that if you enter a waiting room of a doctor’s clinic, for example, and there are no other drug representatives at such a location, do not necessarily be in a hurry. There may be only a few patients waiting to be seen by the health care provider.
Consider striking up a conversation with one of these patients as you both wait to see the health care provider. This rarely if ever happens- drug reps having a nice conversation with a patient in such a manner. You know, they are not Lepers, and you might provide some public relations for the industry that employs you, and certainly for the company that employs you.
Make an effort not to become vexed if you are unable to see one of your targeted prescribers that you desperately feel a need to speak with as dictated by your employer. Do not view yourself to be a complete failure at your vocation if this occurs.
More importantly, if a health care provider accepts your promoted drug samples from you, yet refuses to see or speak with you, you still have accomplished something positive for your employer. The samples in themselves will influence their prescribing habits more than you may realize.
So I suggest you visit such offices, regardless if you see the prescriber or not. You still will or may have a positive effect on what you feel you need to do with your job, which is to increase the market share of your promoted medications.
However, if you have an opportunity to be invited into the medical office to ‘check samples’, which means an opportunity to speak with the health care provider, make an effort to read the environment in this patient treatment area you are a guest in at this time.
For example, are staff members in this patient treatment area moving quickly? Do they appear overwhelmed? Are you not receiving any eye contact or dialogue from such staff members? Does the health care provider seem less than jovial?
If so, do not discuss any business or promoted product issues at such times. The doctor and his or her staff have more concerning tasks at hand than your presence there, likely, if this occurs. Their needs are always more important than your own.
Likely, you will visit this same location again and again that is in your territory assigned to you by your employer. So you will not receive immediate results- both with your business, and your relationships with those in the medical community for which you serve.
As you continue with your career, strive to learn as much as you can about not only the benefits of the medications you promote, but also the disease states for which they treat.
You are, or should be, viewed as somewhat of an expert with both as you interact with others who are clinicians and patient care providers with great knowledge, often, of what I am suggesting to you as a pharmaceutical representative.
So many others in your profession are a bit apathetic regarding any interest with medical issues, and the importance of restoring the health of others. This paradigm is in large part the apex of the profession in which you dialogue with during the course of your day.
Quite frankly, if you have no interest in the importance and complexities involved with medicine or health care, you should consider another job.
Keep in mind the ‘detail pieces’- based on the clinical trials your employer gives you to persuade prescribers in fact often contain data that is largely embellished, incomplete, or completely fabricated. You are not told this because your employer wishes you to believe that your promoted drug is in fact superior, and safe.
Find avenues of information on the drugs you promote from legitimate sources you can easily find on the internet. You should do this not only from a stance of credibility, but for the benefits of patients who may be prescribed your promoted drugs as well.
I can assure you that such authenticity will not ruin your life, and will be appreciated by those who may prescribe the drugs you promote.
Furthermore, and as with so many other pharmaceutical representatives, I’ve read those aggressive and brutally subjective commentaries, if not essays, from other pharmaceutical representatives on the ever so popular Cafepharma website- that great bathroom wall where others express their anger in the written word.
I know your concerns as a pharmaceutical representative, as well as the ridiculous activities you are required to do by your employer at times that either appear or in fact are pointless and absurd, if not unethical and/or illegal.
With this said, I suggest you not be in a constant state of understandable anger or unhappiness as you work during the day visiting those in the medical community.
People, including pharmaceutical representatives, are more transparent that you may realize (psychopaths are an exception). Those in the medical community that you interrupt (and you do) would rather not view you as upset or joyless if you are fortunate enough to visit them at their medical facilities.
Attempt to make yourself in a presentable mood before entering such medical location. Who knows? You might actually make another’s day. Try gently to make medical staff laugh appropriately, for example. This may be more important than the 1000 dollar suit you may be wearing, or the BMW you may be driving.
Also of particular note, and this applies in particular to rather large pharmaceutical corporations, there seems to be a constant theme with their sales forces:
Members of these sales teams are always striving to make a favorable impression for their employer- specifically their manager. This in itself is understandable and not necessarily a bad thing to do in the corporate world to ensure employment security.
Yet do not ever confuse your misperceived creative or innovative acts. Such acts possibly could be unethical if not criminal activities you may engage in upon your own discretion, or upon a recommendation from another employee you work with at your pharmaceutical company.
Yet often, you may be directed to implement such activities by your manager, and those above your manager on the corporate ladder.
It happens often at times, and it is not a good thing for many others, these activities that are simply not the right thing to do.
So I suggest that you learn about laws relevant to your profession as a pharmaceutical representative. There are many, and you are likely not told these legal statutes and acts mandated by lawmakers by your employer at all.
Learn about the terms associated with such laws, such as misbranding, kickbacks, off-label promotion, and disease mongering as well, for example.
Why do pharmaceutical representatives follow at times directions of this nature by their superiors, as uncomfortable as it may be for them at times with some of them?
This happens for two reasons: First, it’s understandable with a pharmaceutical representative that if their superior directs them to implement certain activities related to their employer’s objectives, the directives are appropriate and necessary.
It is also reasonable to conclude that such acts planned deliberately could in fact ethical and legal. So rarely do pharmaceutical representatives ever question what they are told to do by their employers and managers.
For example, do not ever engage in what is called quid pro quo. This is Latin as well, and means, ‘this for that’.
Just because you or those from your employer has bought the staff of a medical office lunch often, or leave the health care providers samples of your promoted products in great amounts, or placed a fancy TV in their medical clinic, since the prescribers in such a clinic are ‘top’ prescribers- these gifts do not mean in any situation that the doctor owes you prescriptions for the medications that you promote to such doctors.
If your sales numbers are down, do not blame the medical professionals in your territory in such a way, and it happens at times. You have no right to remind a prescriber of the inducements that you have provided a particular prescriber.
To be clear, this scenario of potential wrongdoing is possible, yet not always. In summary on this topic, exercise caution on what you may be directed to do by your employer, and your manager. If it is in fact illegal, or potentially illegal, you do not want to do such actions, of course.
Finally, there are certain intrinsic human traits that others rarely discussed or examined, and I believe they should be acknowledged. Examples include qualities such as character, integrity, or kindness- as well as honesty.
I am not suggesting that you consider you adopt such moral and ethical concepts if they are of no importance to you. I'm suggesting these concepts because they appear to be absent from your industry as an entire entity.
What I am suggesting is that you discover the meaning of such words and at least consider the possibility of acquiring such traits within you if they are absent.
At the very least, consider the value of such traits, and this may be for your benefit as you continue through your life span and your career.
Thank you for your time, and good selling,
Dan Abshear
What will follow is not in any way to be interpreted by the reader as being absolute directives or rules you should adopt in order to be successful.
Nor am I, as a veteran ex-big pharmaceutical representative, suggesting the contents are an outline of what is considered an ideal pharmaceutical representative, and what is needed for your own success as you define this as a pharmaceutical representative.
So, these are some simple, yet possibly preferred, ideas I wish to offer to those who are pharmaceutical representatives related to the nature of their vocation, as well as the image of the industry of your employer, and how this can be improved:
Never park your free company car closest to the entrance of a doctor’s office or clinic. Obviously, both places treat sick people- some worse than others. Aim for the back of the parking lot. Exercise is good for you. Others need that ideal parking space more than you do. Show some consideration.
Upon entering a medical location, such as a doctor’s office, if you happen to notice more than one pharmaceutical representative sitting in what may be a small waiting room, leave immediately and return at another time. Do not be so insistent or persistent that you disrupt those in that waiting room who need to see the doctor much more than you do.
Conversely, a similar suggestion is that if you enter a waiting room of a doctor’s clinic, for example, and there are no other drug representatives at such a location, do not necessarily be in a hurry. There may be only a few patients waiting to be seen by the health care provider.
Consider striking up a conversation with one of these patients as you both wait to see the health care provider. This rarely if ever happens- drug reps having a nice conversation with a patient in such a manner. You know, they are not Lepers, and you might provide some public relations for the industry that employs you, and certainly for the company that employs you.
Make an effort not to become vexed if you are unable to see one of your targeted prescribers that you desperately feel a need to speak with as dictated by your employer. Do not view yourself to be a complete failure at your vocation if this occurs.
More importantly, if a health care provider accepts your promoted drug samples from you, yet refuses to see or speak with you, you still have accomplished something positive for your employer. The samples in themselves will influence their prescribing habits more than you may realize.
So I suggest you visit such offices, regardless if you see the prescriber or not. You still will or may have a positive effect on what you feel you need to do with your job, which is to increase the market share of your promoted medications.
However, if you have an opportunity to be invited into the medical office to ‘check samples’, which means an opportunity to speak with the health care provider, make an effort to read the environment in this patient treatment area you are a guest in at this time.
For example, are staff members in this patient treatment area moving quickly? Do they appear overwhelmed? Are you not receiving any eye contact or dialogue from such staff members? Does the health care provider seem less than jovial?
If so, do not discuss any business or promoted product issues at such times. The doctor and his or her staff have more concerning tasks at hand than your presence there, likely, if this occurs. Their needs are always more important than your own.
Likely, you will visit this same location again and again that is in your territory assigned to you by your employer. So you will not receive immediate results- both with your business, and your relationships with those in the medical community for which you serve.
As you continue with your career, strive to learn as much as you can about not only the benefits of the medications you promote, but also the disease states for which they treat.
You are, or should be, viewed as somewhat of an expert with both as you interact with others who are clinicians and patient care providers with great knowledge, often, of what I am suggesting to you as a pharmaceutical representative.
So many others in your profession are a bit apathetic regarding any interest with medical issues, and the importance of restoring the health of others. This paradigm is in large part the apex of the profession in which you dialogue with during the course of your day.
Quite frankly, if you have no interest in the importance and complexities involved with medicine or health care, you should consider another job.
Keep in mind the ‘detail pieces’- based on the clinical trials your employer gives you to persuade prescribers in fact often contain data that is largely embellished, incomplete, or completely fabricated. You are not told this because your employer wishes you to believe that your promoted drug is in fact superior, and safe.
Find avenues of information on the drugs you promote from legitimate sources you can easily find on the internet. You should do this not only from a stance of credibility, but for the benefits of patients who may be prescribed your promoted drugs as well.
I can assure you that such authenticity will not ruin your life, and will be appreciated by those who may prescribe the drugs you promote.
Furthermore, and as with so many other pharmaceutical representatives, I’ve read those aggressive and brutally subjective commentaries, if not essays, from other pharmaceutical representatives on the ever so popular Cafepharma website- that great bathroom wall where others express their anger in the written word.
I know your concerns as a pharmaceutical representative, as well as the ridiculous activities you are required to do by your employer at times that either appear or in fact are pointless and absurd, if not unethical and/or illegal.
With this said, I suggest you not be in a constant state of understandable anger or unhappiness as you work during the day visiting those in the medical community.
People, including pharmaceutical representatives, are more transparent that you may realize (psychopaths are an exception). Those in the medical community that you interrupt (and you do) would rather not view you as upset or joyless if you are fortunate enough to visit them at their medical facilities.
Attempt to make yourself in a presentable mood before entering such medical location. Who knows? You might actually make another’s day. Try gently to make medical staff laugh appropriately, for example. This may be more important than the 1000 dollar suit you may be wearing, or the BMW you may be driving.
Also of particular note, and this applies in particular to rather large pharmaceutical corporations, there seems to be a constant theme with their sales forces:
Members of these sales teams are always striving to make a favorable impression for their employer- specifically their manager. This in itself is understandable and not necessarily a bad thing to do in the corporate world to ensure employment security.
Yet do not ever confuse your misperceived creative or innovative acts. Such acts possibly could be unethical if not criminal activities you may engage in upon your own discretion, or upon a recommendation from another employee you work with at your pharmaceutical company.
Yet often, you may be directed to implement such activities by your manager, and those above your manager on the corporate ladder.
It happens often at times, and it is not a good thing for many others, these activities that are simply not the right thing to do.
So I suggest that you learn about laws relevant to your profession as a pharmaceutical representative. There are many, and you are likely not told these legal statutes and acts mandated by lawmakers by your employer at all.
Learn about the terms associated with such laws, such as misbranding, kickbacks, off-label promotion, and disease mongering as well, for example.
Why do pharmaceutical representatives follow at times directions of this nature by their superiors, as uncomfortable as it may be for them at times with some of them?
This happens for two reasons: First, it’s understandable with a pharmaceutical representative that if their superior directs them to implement certain activities related to their employer’s objectives, the directives are appropriate and necessary.
It is also reasonable to conclude that such acts planned deliberately could in fact ethical and legal. So rarely do pharmaceutical representatives ever question what they are told to do by their employers and managers.
For example, do not ever engage in what is called quid pro quo. This is Latin as well, and means, ‘this for that’.
Just because you or those from your employer has bought the staff of a medical office lunch often, or leave the health care providers samples of your promoted products in great amounts, or placed a fancy TV in their medical clinic, since the prescribers in such a clinic are ‘top’ prescribers- these gifts do not mean in any situation that the doctor owes you prescriptions for the medications that you promote to such doctors.
If your sales numbers are down, do not blame the medical professionals in your territory in such a way, and it happens at times. You have no right to remind a prescriber of the inducements that you have provided a particular prescriber.
To be clear, this scenario of potential wrongdoing is possible, yet not always. In summary on this topic, exercise caution on what you may be directed to do by your employer, and your manager. If it is in fact illegal, or potentially illegal, you do not want to do such actions, of course.
Finally, there are certain intrinsic human traits that others rarely discussed or examined, and I believe they should be acknowledged. Examples include qualities such as character, integrity, or kindness- as well as honesty.
I am not suggesting that you consider you adopt such moral and ethical concepts if they are of no importance to you. I'm suggesting these concepts because they appear to be absent from your industry as an entire entity.
What I am suggesting is that you discover the meaning of such words and at least consider the possibility of acquiring such traits within you if they are absent.
At the very least, consider the value of such traits, and this may be for your benefit as you continue through your life span and your career.
Thank you for your time, and good selling,
Dan Abshear
This Makes Me Sick
When I was a child, I heard the phrase 'war-monger', I had to find out its definition, as I had no idea what that phrase meant. I knew others could, and were, labeled with this phrase, as I had heard it in the past directed at others whoever said these two words. So I felt a need to know what these words meant, and how they affected others who heard them.
Finally, I found the answer: a warmonger is one who promotes war, which is undesirable or discreditable. In this case, one labeled this would have an affinity for what others are reasonably opposed to share the same views:
Others promote other things besides war.
Disease mongering is when a large pharmaceutical corporation implements various unethical if not illegal activities in order to sell more of their products by either creating or expanding a particular illness. They do this by creating the perception that others are likely ill in some way when, in fact, they are not. Instead of disease mongering, drug companies call this activity brand conditioning.
Drug companies do this by seeking more of those who should be patients in need of treatment with the drug maker's promoted medications, regardless if they are in need of such treatment or not, clinically.
How this is done by these companies will be described soon.
The drug makers clearly place the needs for their drugs to be for medical conditions whose treatment regimens are to be viewed by others as incomplete or unmet. The companies want to let the public know of the progressive increase for the disease states and how their products treat this illness better than what is available now or has been used in the past. How ironic it seems that drug companies, who make drugs to delay the progression of, or cure diseases with these drugs, wish for others to become as sick as possible to profit from their suffering that they create with disease mongering and sell more pills.
This disease-mongering in fact does occur often to widen the diagnostic boundaries of an illness, disorder, or syndrome by creating awareness of such medical conditions to the public. The drug companies do this by utilizing in several ways the delivery of fabricated if not baseless information during this process.
Usually, the pharmaceutical either creates or expands a disease state by deception directly to consumers, often. Then the consumer, who now believes that they are ill, go see their health care provider. The health care provider, due largely to the unfamiliarity of the patient’s symptoms expressed by the patient, if not the drug the patient is requesting, usually writes a prescription for the drug requested by the patient.
First, let's take a look at this label of disease mongering. It is inappropriate in that, unlike diseases and illnesses, mongering occurs with medical disorders and syndromes as well.
It is accurate and factual, however, that disease mongering does happen with deliberate intent and reckless disregard for the well-being of others by drug companies.
There was a book written by Ray Moynihan and Allan Cassels called, "Selling Sickness" in 2005. The book thoroughly described how big pharmaceutical corporations are turning all of us into patients, and into a over-medicated society.
Disease mongering progressively continues to create patients with illnesses, disorders, or syndromes that in fact may not exist without any intervention to discontinue this behavior.
What the drug company implements to make sure this happens includes the following:
1. Paying medical journals to publish fabricated clinical trials involving their promoted medications after paying those involved with such a clinical trial to create such fabricated data. That is disease mongering to the health care provider.
2. Subjective screenings, such as those for various mood disorders. These screenings, as well as the affective disorders, which were rare until about 1995, involve leading questions often- created by the drug company. It was around this time that the United States was becoming more of a psychotropic nation.
These screenings that involve the leading questions responded by select groups of people. They are asked these questions by certain disease state support groups who have been converted into front groups after being funded by those big pharma companies who produce drugs for particular mood disorders.
3. Disease creations I: Social Anxiety Disorder, or social phobia: This condition is in the DSM IV which was published in 1994, and some were forced to delete the statement regarding this disorder that said, "Social Anxiety Disorder is not well-established, and requires further study."
Aside from what may be simply amplified introversion, social phobias are likely due to societal dysfunctions and certainly should not be labeled as a pathological condition requiring pharmacological treatment.
4. Disease creations II: Premenstrual dysphoric disorder. I call this a mid-life crisis, yet it was entered by instruction by the APA (American Psychiatric Association) into the DSM (the psychiatrist's bible) in 1993. Anxiety about the inevitable does not require pharmacological treatment.
5. Direct to Consumer Advertising:. Most memorable were those commercials for erectile dysfunction. Their absurdness in creating these commercials appears to have multiple psychotic components:
A healthy man who could probably run a marathon is having a decent time with his wife at some upper- middle class location. He is smiling all the time. Because now, his marriage is secure due to his ability to copulate- which was apparently absent before this wonder drug entered his system. Of course, it is not possible to have a happy marriage without intercourse, right?
Then there are other conditions which are entirely natural in the human lifespan, yet have been determined to be diseases by those who can profit off of these lifespan events. Examples include osteoporosis and menopause, as well as erectile dysfunction. It’s insane the FDA approves pharmaceuticals for these natural events that occur normally in a human being.
Finally, there are the required medical guidelines for various disease states, such as dyslipidemia. Drug companies that make medications to treat this disease are more than happy to support the financial needs involved in creating these guidelines. Dyslipidemia, for example:
Publications such as the Lipid Letter, and Lipid Management, both offered more aggressive management of the lipid profiles of the patients of the readers. And both publications were funded completely by those big pharma companies that promote statins. Same with cholesterol screenings that occur often that are implemented by those drug companies with drugs that treat the disorder of dyslipidemia.
A myth is something unproven. A false belief, or invented story.
Disease Mongering is not a myth. Large pharmaceutical corporations promote illness and disease- not desired by anyone and discredited by many, and these companies do this for profit and profit only.
I worked for three of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world for over a decade, and the disease mongering protocols were similar if not identical with all of these companies consistently,
Dan Abshear
http://collections.plos.org/plosmedicine/diseasemongering-2006.php
Please review the link above, as there appears to be with some in the pharmaceutical corporate world that are offended by being labeled disease mongers. Often, others are offended by facts that exist as a reaction, it seems. Clearly, disease mongering is real, and activities illustrate this behavior.
.
Finally, I found the answer: a warmonger is one who promotes war, which is undesirable or discreditable. In this case, one labeled this would have an affinity for what others are reasonably opposed to share the same views:
Others promote other things besides war.
Disease mongering is when a large pharmaceutical corporation implements various unethical if not illegal activities in order to sell more of their products by either creating or expanding a particular illness. They do this by creating the perception that others are likely ill in some way when, in fact, they are not. Instead of disease mongering, drug companies call this activity brand conditioning.
Drug companies do this by seeking more of those who should be patients in need of treatment with the drug maker's promoted medications, regardless if they are in need of such treatment or not, clinically.
How this is done by these companies will be described soon.
The drug makers clearly place the needs for their drugs to be for medical conditions whose treatment regimens are to be viewed by others as incomplete or unmet. The companies want to let the public know of the progressive increase for the disease states and how their products treat this illness better than what is available now or has been used in the past. How ironic it seems that drug companies, who make drugs to delay the progression of, or cure diseases with these drugs, wish for others to become as sick as possible to profit from their suffering that they create with disease mongering and sell more pills.
This disease-mongering in fact does occur often to widen the diagnostic boundaries of an illness, disorder, or syndrome by creating awareness of such medical conditions to the public. The drug companies do this by utilizing in several ways the delivery of fabricated if not baseless information during this process.
Usually, the pharmaceutical either creates or expands a disease state by deception directly to consumers, often. Then the consumer, who now believes that they are ill, go see their health care provider. The health care provider, due largely to the unfamiliarity of the patient’s symptoms expressed by the patient, if not the drug the patient is requesting, usually writes a prescription for the drug requested by the patient.
First, let's take a look at this label of disease mongering. It is inappropriate in that, unlike diseases and illnesses, mongering occurs with medical disorders and syndromes as well.
It is accurate and factual, however, that disease mongering does happen with deliberate intent and reckless disregard for the well-being of others by drug companies.
There was a book written by Ray Moynihan and Allan Cassels called, "Selling Sickness" in 2005. The book thoroughly described how big pharmaceutical corporations are turning all of us into patients, and into a over-medicated society.
Disease mongering progressively continues to create patients with illnesses, disorders, or syndromes that in fact may not exist without any intervention to discontinue this behavior.
What the drug company implements to make sure this happens includes the following:
1. Paying medical journals to publish fabricated clinical trials involving their promoted medications after paying those involved with such a clinical trial to create such fabricated data. That is disease mongering to the health care provider.
2. Subjective screenings, such as those for various mood disorders. These screenings, as well as the affective disorders, which were rare until about 1995, involve leading questions often- created by the drug company. It was around this time that the United States was becoming more of a psychotropic nation.
These screenings that involve the leading questions responded by select groups of people. They are asked these questions by certain disease state support groups who have been converted into front groups after being funded by those big pharma companies who produce drugs for particular mood disorders.
3. Disease creations I: Social Anxiety Disorder, or social phobia: This condition is in the DSM IV which was published in 1994, and some were forced to delete the statement regarding this disorder that said, "Social Anxiety Disorder is not well-established, and requires further study."
Aside from what may be simply amplified introversion, social phobias are likely due to societal dysfunctions and certainly should not be labeled as a pathological condition requiring pharmacological treatment.
4. Disease creations II: Premenstrual dysphoric disorder. I call this a mid-life crisis, yet it was entered by instruction by the APA (American Psychiatric Association) into the DSM (the psychiatrist's bible) in 1993. Anxiety about the inevitable does not require pharmacological treatment.
5. Direct to Consumer Advertising:. Most memorable were those commercials for erectile dysfunction. Their absurdness in creating these commercials appears to have multiple psychotic components:
A healthy man who could probably run a marathon is having a decent time with his wife at some upper- middle class location. He is smiling all the time. Because now, his marriage is secure due to his ability to copulate- which was apparently absent before this wonder drug entered his system. Of course, it is not possible to have a happy marriage without intercourse, right?
Then there are other conditions which are entirely natural in the human lifespan, yet have been determined to be diseases by those who can profit off of these lifespan events. Examples include osteoporosis and menopause, as well as erectile dysfunction. It’s insane the FDA approves pharmaceuticals for these natural events that occur normally in a human being.
Finally, there are the required medical guidelines for various disease states, such as dyslipidemia. Drug companies that make medications to treat this disease are more than happy to support the financial needs involved in creating these guidelines. Dyslipidemia, for example:
Publications such as the Lipid Letter, and Lipid Management, both offered more aggressive management of the lipid profiles of the patients of the readers. And both publications were funded completely by those big pharma companies that promote statins. Same with cholesterol screenings that occur often that are implemented by those drug companies with drugs that treat the disorder of dyslipidemia.
A myth is something unproven. A false belief, or invented story.
Disease Mongering is not a myth. Large pharmaceutical corporations promote illness and disease- not desired by anyone and discredited by many, and these companies do this for profit and profit only.
I worked for three of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world for over a decade, and the disease mongering protocols were similar if not identical with all of these companies consistently,
Dan Abshear
http://collections.plos.org/plosmedicine/diseasemongering-2006.php
Please review the link above, as there appears to be with some in the pharmaceutical corporate world that are offended by being labeled disease mongers. Often, others are offended by facts that exist as a reaction, it seems. Clearly, disease mongering is real, and activities illustrate this behavior.
.
Pharmaceutical Plagarism
The Fallacies Associated With ‘Me-Too’ Pharmaceuticals
“But corruption is neither need based nor greed based. It’s simply opportunity based.” -----Billy Tauzin, president and C.E.O. of PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry’s most powerful lobbying group, as Mr. Tauzin stated in Boston recently.
It has been said by others that the pharmaceutical industry should not have government regulation or interference from anyone interfering with their autonomy- because that would drastically limit if not eliminate their progressive innovation regarding the restoration of the health of others with their drugs.
Also what has been stated by this industry that their internal controls prevent wrongdoing, so there is no need o be under surveillance. So, according to some, the public’s health would be potentially unfulfilled and possibly harmed without the copious innovative products of this industry.
As with other issues we face as citizens, this is another attempt by an industry that is constantly attempting to integrate fabricated fear in our minds- void of any proof or reason, and this is a fallacy.
As it has turned out, the pharmaceutical industry’s lack of innovation in particular has happened and they have appeared to do this on their own, overall, those innovators and lifesavers of the past.
Over the last several years, those few meds created and FDA approved with true therapeutic advantages happened by discovery with government involvement. Of all drugs approved by the FDA, few offer any clear clinical advantages over other drugs for certain patients.
The approved drugs, called new chemical entities, that have been FDA approved lately which were developed by drug companies, possess microscopic therapeutic advantages over existing drugs that are presently prescribed for particular patients.
This inefficient drug development process by the pharmaceutical industry has created what is now the dominant development strategy of drug companies, and this strategy is known as the intentional development of what are phrased, ‘me too’ drugs.
These drugs essentially are small molecular variations of the original molecule in a particular class of medications. In other words, they tweak the original molecule in order to obtain patent rights for their now new drug project. That’s why you have a half a dozen statins or ARBs available to you. The are all equivalent, biochemically.
This ‘me too’ objective of drug companies now accounts, I believe, for about 80 percent of the research budgets of drug companies. And because the FDA only requires a pending drug awaiting approval to only be slightly superior to a placebo, the copies of drugs that already exist are approved by the FDA.
While unnecessary, these me too drugs are selected by the drug company for their potential blockbuster status as well as the speculated growth of a particular market or disease state, which means the drug company who develops a me too drug hopes to eventually make over 1 billion dollars a year on such a drug, at least.
For example, statin drugs, for high cholesterol patients, is a multi- billion dollar market. As a result, there are several statin meds now available for use by doctors to prescribe to their patients. While unnecessary for the health of others, this is where the research dollars are going with those in the pharmaceutical company.
As aggressive marketers, the makers of these meds are suspected of doing a bit of publication planning, it is suspected. They create clinical trials to falsely claim superiority of their newly approved me too drug over all the other drugs in a particular class both during and after the creation of these me too drugs. Yet again, if they are in the same therapeutic class, they are all essentially the same regarding efficacy and safety.
Also, other classes of meds with several me too drugs may include SSRI anti-depressant drugs, as well as those meds for hypertension. There may be a dozen drugs in a particular class of medications that are all essentially the same in regards to their treatment abilities for patients with such disease states that they treat.
Now, there may be cases where a patient tolerates one drug in a class over another for unknown reasons, so in these few cases, some me too drugs occasionally are beneficial for patients for some reason or another, but should absolutely not be a primary objective of the drug companies to create them as often as they do.
Instead, true innovation and discovery should be the focus of pharmaceutical companies, and it does not appear to be the focus of the pharmaceutical industry presently. It appears that, thanks to the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 in the United States, the pharmaceutical industry is allowed to license newly created synthetic small molecules from those in the academic world, and then proceed with development of another’s creation that the pharmaceutical company will claim as their innovation to the public.
Further vexing is that competition in the pharmaceutical industry amazingly does not and has not been of any financial benefit for the consumer, as competition normally does create. This fact is greatly demonstrated with other industries and is the apex of business operations in the United States.
This pharmaceutical industry model is an exception to typical business operations, and the reason for this remains an unknown, as far as the etiology of those who take their drugs being deprived of expected cost reduction in this costly environment of drug spending. So a drug company comes out with a me too drug, and claims it is unique rather deceptively, so there is no cost advantage for the consumer.
This progressive marketing paradigm of the pharmaceutical industry, such as the creation of me too meds solely created for their own profit, clearly illustrates their focus on their avoidance of true research and discovery for the sake of their own profit viewed by them as of being of greater importance.
Innovation, along with ethics, use to define this pharmaceutical industry. Sadly, it seems this is not the case today, which ultimately and potentially deprives potential treatment methods for the public health. Perhaps more cures and more therapeutic options would be available if the objectives of the pharmaceutical industry were for the benefit of the health of others.
Hopefully, such historical qualities of drug companies will return some time, in time.
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” --- Oscar Wilde
Dan Abshear
Author’s note: What has been written was based on information and belief.
“But corruption is neither need based nor greed based. It’s simply opportunity based.” -----Billy Tauzin, president and C.E.O. of PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry’s most powerful lobbying group, as Mr. Tauzin stated in Boston recently.
It has been said by others that the pharmaceutical industry should not have government regulation or interference from anyone interfering with their autonomy- because that would drastically limit if not eliminate their progressive innovation regarding the restoration of the health of others with their drugs.
Also what has been stated by this industry that their internal controls prevent wrongdoing, so there is no need o be under surveillance. So, according to some, the public’s health would be potentially unfulfilled and possibly harmed without the copious innovative products of this industry.
As with other issues we face as citizens, this is another attempt by an industry that is constantly attempting to integrate fabricated fear in our minds- void of any proof or reason, and this is a fallacy.
As it has turned out, the pharmaceutical industry’s lack of innovation in particular has happened and they have appeared to do this on their own, overall, those innovators and lifesavers of the past.
Over the last several years, those few meds created and FDA approved with true therapeutic advantages happened by discovery with government involvement. Of all drugs approved by the FDA, few offer any clear clinical advantages over other drugs for certain patients.
The approved drugs, called new chemical entities, that have been FDA approved lately which were developed by drug companies, possess microscopic therapeutic advantages over existing drugs that are presently prescribed for particular patients.
This inefficient drug development process by the pharmaceutical industry has created what is now the dominant development strategy of drug companies, and this strategy is known as the intentional development of what are phrased, ‘me too’ drugs.
These drugs essentially are small molecular variations of the original molecule in a particular class of medications. In other words, they tweak the original molecule in order to obtain patent rights for their now new drug project. That’s why you have a half a dozen statins or ARBs available to you. The are all equivalent, biochemically.
This ‘me too’ objective of drug companies now accounts, I believe, for about 80 percent of the research budgets of drug companies. And because the FDA only requires a pending drug awaiting approval to only be slightly superior to a placebo, the copies of drugs that already exist are approved by the FDA.
While unnecessary, these me too drugs are selected by the drug company for their potential blockbuster status as well as the speculated growth of a particular market or disease state, which means the drug company who develops a me too drug hopes to eventually make over 1 billion dollars a year on such a drug, at least.
For example, statin drugs, for high cholesterol patients, is a multi- billion dollar market. As a result, there are several statin meds now available for use by doctors to prescribe to their patients. While unnecessary for the health of others, this is where the research dollars are going with those in the pharmaceutical company.
As aggressive marketers, the makers of these meds are suspected of doing a bit of publication planning, it is suspected. They create clinical trials to falsely claim superiority of their newly approved me too drug over all the other drugs in a particular class both during and after the creation of these me too drugs. Yet again, if they are in the same therapeutic class, they are all essentially the same regarding efficacy and safety.
Also, other classes of meds with several me too drugs may include SSRI anti-depressant drugs, as well as those meds for hypertension. There may be a dozen drugs in a particular class of medications that are all essentially the same in regards to their treatment abilities for patients with such disease states that they treat.
Now, there may be cases where a patient tolerates one drug in a class over another for unknown reasons, so in these few cases, some me too drugs occasionally are beneficial for patients for some reason or another, but should absolutely not be a primary objective of the drug companies to create them as often as they do.
Instead, true innovation and discovery should be the focus of pharmaceutical companies, and it does not appear to be the focus of the pharmaceutical industry presently. It appears that, thanks to the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 in the United States, the pharmaceutical industry is allowed to license newly created synthetic small molecules from those in the academic world, and then proceed with development of another’s creation that the pharmaceutical company will claim as their innovation to the public.
Further vexing is that competition in the pharmaceutical industry amazingly does not and has not been of any financial benefit for the consumer, as competition normally does create. This fact is greatly demonstrated with other industries and is the apex of business operations in the United States.
This pharmaceutical industry model is an exception to typical business operations, and the reason for this remains an unknown, as far as the etiology of those who take their drugs being deprived of expected cost reduction in this costly environment of drug spending. So a drug company comes out with a me too drug, and claims it is unique rather deceptively, so there is no cost advantage for the consumer.
This progressive marketing paradigm of the pharmaceutical industry, such as the creation of me too meds solely created for their own profit, clearly illustrates their focus on their avoidance of true research and discovery for the sake of their own profit viewed by them as of being of greater importance.
Innovation, along with ethics, use to define this pharmaceutical industry. Sadly, it seems this is not the case today, which ultimately and potentially deprives potential treatment methods for the public health. Perhaps more cures and more therapeutic options would be available if the objectives of the pharmaceutical industry were for the benefit of the health of others.
Hopefully, such historical qualities of drug companies will return some time, in time.
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” --- Oscar Wilde
Dan Abshear
Author’s note: What has been written was based on information and belief.
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