AstraZeneca Widens Newsletter Investigation
3 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // April 7th, 2007 // 2:52 pm
Will this be a witch hunt?
Embarassed by the public disclosure of an internal newsletter in which a regional sales manager for oncology meds says each doctor’s office is like “a big bucket of money,” AstraZeneca is probing deeper into “the development and distribution” of the red-hot missive.
The disclosure Thursday night resulted in the firing yesterday of Mike Zubillaga, whose remarks were printed in the company’s Oncology Winter newsletter in which he discusses goals and motivations, among other things, for AstraZeneca sales reps.
In response to questions from Pharmalot, an AstraZeneca spokeswoman today says the investigation continues, and also repeated earlier remarks that the drugmaker “strongly repudiates the negative comments made in this newsletter,” which she says was “unapproved.” However, the reply failed to answer several questions that were asked, such as:
What does unapproved mean? The newsletter was clearly labeled as coming from AstraZeneca’s Mid-Atlantic Business Center in Wayne, Pa. And it was marked as a Winter edition and, therefore, circulated for weeks. If it truly was a rogue newsletter, what happened to compliance? Why did the company not act sooner? Did the company act now only out of embarassment?
Zubillaga did not return a call seeking comment. Meanwhile, a poll on PharmaGossip is under way and, so far, 30 percent of the 40 repsondents say Zubillaga should have been fired, while 15 percent disagree and that AstraZeneca is ‘just putting out a fire.” And 12 percent predict a witch hunt.
Here is an excerpt of the reply from AstraZeneca spokeswoman Kirsten Evraire:
“…Our company is disturbed by the content and particularly concerned about the impact the content of this unapproved newsletter may have on our employees and others. In addition, we are concerned that a manager in our sales organization used this vehicle to communicate messages that directly contravene our core values as a responsible pharmaceutical company.
Our investigation into the development and distribution of this newsletter continues, in an effort to determine whether our current policies and procedures regarding AstraZeneca communications are being adhered to by employees…”
[tags]AstraZeneca[/tags]
JS
I am surprised they didn’t say there were a bunch of martians who took over his body. The company will continue to deny any knowledge and eventually deny the manager ever worked for them. As you have seen from recent events with Pfizer they take no responsibility for any bad deeds only good deeds. It is very disturbing to see it first hand and then witness it in another company. This manager clearly violated many rules of good manners but was probably applauded for his statements in house before they became public. He was a god to the sales people and probably had a sales performance off the charts. I am glad he was caught because he represents the misbelief that everything and everyone exist only for financial gain. I wonder in light of these events he thinks it was worth all the personal sacrifice maybe he could read a real book , catch some rays, or watch a ball game.
Chloe
I am glad you brought up some of the in-house functions that have failed because that is what has really gone wrong here. No one person in our industry is allowed to commit anything in writing, especially in a Big Pharma company, without stringent review. To say that this occurred without company knowledge is an unbelievable statement. This is not like a newspaper where the public is forgiving and you’re allowed to print a retraction. We are investigated and our internal moments of idiocy are bought out and used again and again as gospel (eg - Dodgeball in vioxx.) There are intricate review systems in place to prevent this from happening. AZ was asleep and wanted to motivate its troops without thinking about the consequences of what they were putting in writing.
JJ
To hear AZ explain it, one might think the manager wrote the article, published the newsletter, and distributed it himself. His comments were “unapproved”? Really? This newsletter doesn’t go through the same med/legal approval process that all other communications vehicles go through?
If so, some other people should be canned as well, and they might do well to do up the food chain to do so.