Fred Hassan Boasts About His Bulge
6 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // October 22nd, 2007 // 7:22 am
In discussing Schering-Plough’s earnings report this morning, the drugmaker’s ceo chats it up and tries to create the kind of imagery that contrasts with most of his peers, which are struggling to develop new products. “With the upcoming acquisition of Organon BioSciences, we will have a total of 12 significant projects in Phase III - we will have a pipeline with a Phase III bulge,” he crows in a statement.
The earnings, however, didn’t earn him bragging rights. Profits more than doubled on higher sales of the Vytorin and Zetia cholesterol - net income climbed to $750 million, or 45 cents a share, from $309 million, or 19 cents, a year earlier. But when excluding items related to the $14.4 billion Organon acquisition, Schering-Plough missed Wall Street forecasts of 30 cents a share.
Revenue jumped to $2.81 billion from $2.57 billion, thanks to new scrips for Vytorin, which combines Zetia with Merck’s Zocor. While cheaper, generic copies of Zocor have been sold since June 2006, Vytorin sales are boosted by a $128 million ad campaign citing how the pill fights cholesterol in two ways and by studies comparing it with other branded meds, Bloomberg News notes.
WB
Ed,
Perhaps the “bulge” he describes will make it to market and be able to cover all the future fines they’ll likely receive for their extremely suspicious marketing and sales tactics. First at Pharmacia and now at Schering-Plough, Fred and Carrie have their sales reps consistently exercising their “freedom of speech” in selling their drugs. Couple that with the their marketing teams commonly holding excessively large advisory boards to parade out Fred, Carrie and off-limits data, and they have a big problem. They simply can’t control themselves as their greed rules. I hope they get caught with their pants down.
WB
MD
WB,
You’ve got it right. Fred and Carrie are always making up their own rules as they go along. Not only that, they behead anybody that gets in their way, a la Peter Rost.
I’ve read Peter’s book and what they did to him at Pharmacia for trying to do the right thing was absolutely disgusting.
I hope they’re held accountable fortheir actions!
MD
MD
CA
Ed,
How interesting! Fred boasts about his “bulge” and SP stock takes a huge hit for its’ failure to meet expectations. The company boasts about the results of a couple of small studies in Japan with their TRA project, but has failed to reveal the results of the once highly touted ENHANCE study with its’ flagship product. Why not? Because the study is wildly rumored to be be totally negative. So much so that several prominent cardiologists, such as Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic, are asking where the results are, 15 months after the study ended. Perhaps Fred will soon be eating crow instead of crowing.
Not only that, his boast about injecting quality, compliance and business integrity into the company’s DNA is a really big joke. I think that the injection was soundly rejected by the commercial organization, just like with HGH at Pharmacia. You can’t teach a bunch of old dogs new tricks.
CA
Disgusted and Misled Investor
Ed,
As when any CEO speaks, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry, what they say has to be taken with a huge grain of salt. Corporate double-speak and spin-doctoring has become so common in the business world that it is standard practice. If you aren’t able to meet earnings expectations, then flood the media with as much potentially positive stuff you can in order to divert attention to your failures. Make sure to include the caveats provided by your legal team in order to be able to back away from your statements in the future.
Schering-Plough’s house of cards is swaying in the wind and they have no more tricks in the bag. The only remaining question is when the walls will come tumbling down!
Disgusted and Misled Investor
SP WB
Schering-Plough is being led by tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum. My guess is that Fred is dee and Carrie is dum. This company makes bad decision after bad decision - some by inaction, some by misled action, and some by plain stupidity. The slowdown is just the tip of the iceberg. The Integrilin acquisition was a miserable flop. ENHANCE is likely completely negative which could really wound Zetia and Vytorin. They will likely drive SP into the ground and then sell it off for the spoils, skewering hundreds of good, quality people along the way!
Pharma Prophet
Watch out for Fast Freddie! He’s a slick one!! EVERYTHING he says must be taken with a pitcher of salt!!