Any Pelicans in the Pharma Industry

[Palum6o]

Just checking to see if there were any of you in the Pharmaceutical industry. I'm sensing a level of instability in the insdustry unlike any other time. I believe its attributed to the higher cost of doing business, the competitiveness to get "good" compound out the door, and only focusing on products that will make a big profit. With all these rising costs, how will it be possible to do business in the future without the prospect of offshoring, which is staring at us in the face? It seems like whenever a company faces any sort of litigation or is forced to take a drug off the market, they take it out on their labor force, especially us in research. I've seen the effects of pseudoephedrine hit me right in my pocket when the FDA decided to move that off the shelf, now I can't imagine what's going on with the children's cough medicine manufacturers, especially at this time of the year. Sorry for the rant, but it just seems crazy right now. Anyone else feeling this?

[livi]

Interesting topic. My uncle started out in this business. Was for some time heading the Astra office in Italy. Came up with the novel idea of parrallel import. Quit Astra and started bying Losec from Italy and selling it to the Swedish pharmacies with a formidable profit. Made British Times Rich List this year.

Cough medicine for children..yes. Typically a combination of ethylmorphine and epinephrine and has been used for kids for ages with plenty of side effects, but actually very little scientific evidence in favor of any significant effect. Funny how that works. Just a month ago, a Swedish doctor got a warning for prescribing one of the most popular cough siraps ever. Apparantly the parents reported a very common side effect and when the case was reviewed the disciplinary board noted that the kid was six months younger than the lower age limit for that medicine. A paramount joke. Everyone knows that we, particularly pediatricians, prescribe a lot of medicines to kids much younger than the age limit - all the time.

The effect of this is that the national health board goes digging in the scientific archives in pursuit of evidence - and what do you know - there are practically none!

Same with the traditional treatment for RS virus infections. Since stonehenge they all got steroids and airway dilating inhalations. Turns out every quality study made shows no significant improvement at all. We still use it, of course.. cause we know it helps.

Sorry, spell check out.

[KevinG]

Wierd - must be Karma. For the next 2 hours, I will be a Pelican working in Pharma.

I was just logging on to post a thread on how strange if feels to be sitting here packing up my office. Boxing personal items, taking down the framed posters of the 930 Cab and the Nissan GTP-ZX turbo. I've been working practically constantly since I was 14 - now 40 years later I am going to be somewhat voluntarily walking out the door without another job as the cause.

My company (biotech) is going through a very painful downsizing and the initial phase was to ask for volunteers for 'early retirement'. Around 1200 qualified, and a little more than half (including me) took the package. That left another 1500 or so that will not have a choice.

Yes, the industry is going through a much higher level of instability than it has had for a long time. There are many factors involved though and they all relate to sustainability of the current business models. In biotech, the cost of developing products has gone through the roof. People on the outside are screaming about the huge profits being made on brand products, which are generally true to a point. What they don't see is the 30-40% sales being pumped back into research to find new treatments. Focus is on blockbusters ($1 Billion in annual sales) because that is the only thing that Wall Street cares for. There is room and profit potential for smaller companies to fill the unmet medical needs for smaller market products, but it is difficult for these companies to attract the venture capital needed to fund the 10+ years needed to bring a new product to market. In my mind, 4 half-billion products is worth more than 1 1-billion product but the capital market just doesn't seem to be interested.

Sustaining the cost structure of medical products in the future seems to be breaking down rapidly. The cost of healthcare is rising so rapidly that it must soon bankrupt somebody - the insurers or the insured, maybe both. I don't have any answers, without the price support there will not be any new products. One of those new products may be needed to save my life in the future, so I hope new drug discovery continues.

In the meantime, I will continue to clean up the office and take the long walk out the door. I don't know what I am going to do - my only hobbies are my Porsche and making beer. If I don't get into something, the beer will make it difficult to get into the Porsche.

Uncertainly stumbling into the sunset......

Kevin

[peritus]

HEEE HEEEE I am a Pelican in Pharma until next Wednesday.. I just handed in my resignation and am boxing things up.

Damn generics.. what to do? Me? I'm changing industries.

[Palum6o]

Contract research was a way that one out of school could explore different jobs and gain experience. You eventually hope to land a permanent position and take advantage of the benefits and security that come along with a permanent job. In the past 5 years, I’ve seen the industry become very unstable, in fact its getting to the point where you don’t know how long you’ll last. I happen to work in one of the largest pharma hot beds in the country so finding a new job is not very difficult, but…. It seemed to start with me, when companies were forced to reformulate cold medicines to use phenylepherine, this put a huge financial strain on companies who now had to spend all that money to reformulate. Well, we were using that money to fund our research studies but all the budgets have been “dried up” (no pun intended). Now I’m in a similar situation (again) on a litigation issue, in fact I was just getting comfortable. I’m getting ready to go back to consulting, but I’m hearing that’s becoming too expensive for companies to afford. Clinical data is being processed in India now, Eastern Europe is coming up to speed on clinical research (we’ll see how long that lasts – they aren’t using the Euro yet) so what is next, all our medical review jobs? India produces 120,000 medical graduates each year and operates at 20 cents on the dollar. This might save the pharma companies money for Wall Street but what is going to happen to the rest of us?

[Tobra]

Big pharma will be getting its butt kicked for a while, no one wants to pay for R&D, and the only thing they are researching are impotence and baldness treatments, because they can charge people cash money for it.

The whole thing(healthcare in the US) is going to be total nightmare, very soon. As our population ages, the demand for social services goes up, while the number paying for it goes down.

The solution for this is the plan to reduce medicare rates of reimbursement for doctors by 40(forty)percent over the next 8 years, for real. I predict a mass retirement of physicians, with a huge influx of foreign educated physicians, but we shall see.

[Mo_Gearhead]

They do have a great marketing plan.

Have you seen the WOMEN the drug companies hire as agents/reps.

Go visit your local doctors office.

(hint: you will not mistake them for Rosie O'Donnell!)

[Dottore]

Originally Posted by KevinG

Uncertainly stumbling into the sunset......

Kevin

Amgen eh? I feel your pain.

I have some good friends caught up in that downsizing.

Sometimes you have to see these things as opportunities though. There still seem to be pharma industry jobs in Europe though - Switzerland for example.

Also how tricky would your transition be from research (if that's what you're doing) to academia? Teaching bio-chemistry for example?

[Aurel]

I have the feeling that the change is much larger than only in pharma. I am in research too (chemistry), and I have transitioned from being at a stable job in a large company, to working on research contracts, soft money, at a University. I have discovered that nobody was there anymore to provide for my research needs, such as salary, equipment, students, etc...Anything I need, I have to go get it myself. I feel much closer to a contractor working at his own business, than an employee of any kind. For several years, I have been angry at that situation, I felt like it was outrageous to ask researchers to fund their own research. But now, I am learning the rules of the game, learning how to talk to investors, write good proposals, manage projects from A to Z. Sure I wish I could still spend all my time at purely research, but it ain`t the case anymore. Then I learnt that I could learn so many new skills, attack new fields.
Do not kid yourselves, accademia is not the safe heaven it seems to be. They will only give you tenure if you come with some big research money, and the ability to maintain serious research funding on the long run.

Aurel

[Flatbutt1]

I work for one of tthe largest outfit in the world and we're having our ass handed to us. Our OTC division just outsourced all of our drug safety to a contractor in SC, all of our stability studies to India, we're transitioning our Clinical operations to India as well . All this after eliminating 12% of our work force here in NJ. And as of this week we've lost the balance of our Clinical budget for the year. The Rx division is bracing for lawsuits.

As for the withdrawal of paediatric formulae, well thats a no win scenario. No one wants to do actual clinical studies on children(just imagine the lawsuits on those!) but now we're told that extrapolating/titurating down from adult studies is unacceptable. Yeah pharma as we have known it is dying off. Some will applaud our demise but once the pipeline dries up there will be hell to pay.

[Tobra]

Originally Posted by Mo_Gearhead

They do have a great marketing plan.

Have you seen the WOMEN the drug companies hire as agents/reps.

Go visit your local doctors office.

(hint: you will not mistake them for Rosie O'Donnell!)

you have no idea. the osteomed rep(fixation devices, orthopedic crap), Niccola Fuhgedabouti(or something like that) stunning, and I don't even go for the Eva Longoria types

[dipso]

My wife is a rep