Comments on: Quote Of The Week: Pharma Has A Black Eye

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 05 May 2008 00:35:32 +0000

Doc,
Yes, I remember that. He was also quoted on WSJ, I think. he may not like sales reps, but I am sure he liked the sales that they brought and the bonuses that he earned.

By: ol cranky

ol cranky — Sat, 03 May 2008 12:22:24 +0000

One of the ways Pharma can save money on drug development (other than off-shoring) is to standardize payments to investigators and to hold them to contracts. The physicians in the US have become such pigs the financial demands they make to conduct trials are outrageous - to make matters worse, many do not perform well at all so the trials end up costing more money (but Pharma/CROs will still use investigators that can get more patients even if they do a crappy job of running the trial).

By: Doc

Doc — Sat, 03 May 2008 11:24:31 +0000

Paul,
I remember an interview with Vagelos in the Harvard Business Review back in the early 90s. He made an interesting statement. He said “I don’t particularly like sales reps, but I have to acknowledge that every time we add more reps, sales go up.” I always thought it was fascinating for a CEO to publically acknowledge that he really didn’t care for reps at a company the size of MRK.

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 03 May 2008 05:24:49 +0000

Dr. Vagelos should fully retire and take a walk to the sunset. he sounds like quite a statesman making these pronouncements, but remember that it was under his regime that the industry — and Merck at the helm — saw an explosion in the number of sales reps, of duplicate sales forces, of consumer advertising (remember “Know your number”?), of high prices (remember $3.00 for a blood pressure pill?).

Also, I think it is a bit strange for one CEO to criticize the activities, prices, ethics, of other companies.

By: eugene

eugene — Sat, 03 May 2008 04:59:28 +0000

i would like to amend my thoughts upon reflection-capitalism is the best system in the world but due to mans selfish nature it has to be monitored so that outlandish greed should not destroy the good our economic ideas have created.people need fair prices for drugs.europeans pay far less than we do- we work harder with much fewer vacation days - dont we deserve a break?govt is supposed to be a referee of sorts between competing interests- the wealthy cant go without a conscience or give monies to charity and expect aq clean slate -god would not buy it and drug firms should do better- men are sent to fight for old glory -you owe them big time and the american people

By: eugene

eugene — Sat, 03 May 2008 04:26:26 +0000

americans should be paying no more and actually less for medicines than others world wide.even inviting readers to offer comments is a scam as we have a country run by big behemoths where the politicians are fronts for them-our democracy is based on what color or what size a voter /consumer prefers. what use is there in glorifyins our nations past if we have become like the chinese and the russians without the killing -it sounds like im off the topic but you know what-why waste ink -it is all over-the biggies have won- ten more years of make believe democracy will have us begging for ajesus figure to save us-if there was a real jesus and he showed up in the frlesh -the banks and the drug companies would crucify him again in a a wall street jounal minute- you can bet the farm on that!!!!!!!!

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 02 May 2008 23:38:04 +0000

I worked for Merck and, years afterwards, heard Mr. Vagelos speak at Washington University in St. Louis, MO about such issues, mentioning the inappropriately high price of biotechs- cancer meds in particular, with minimal life extention and life quality with therapy of these high priced meds.

He was quite insightful and reasonable regarding his statements about the pharma industry presently. And, in my opinion, was one of the better Merck CEOs about 20 years ago.