Comments on: Pharma Execs: Cost Cutting Is Not A Top Priority

By: An FDA Reviewer

An FDA Reviewer — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:17:45 +0000

The situation for native US scientists, engineers, and IT people is well known. Academics from major business schools have looked into it and published papers debunking statements that Bill Gates and others have told Congress in hearings. As for profs leaving, don’t count on it there’s already too many in the pipeline one pharmacy school I applied to told me they got over 200 applications for the same position. People are being hired as TAs forever and so on.

As for hiring at less than the prevailing wage, it happens all the time and is also documented. Most of these jobs are specialized and the labor certification board doesn’t even have a category for them. Plus how are you to prove what they are being paid? Is anyone going to give you their pay stub? This same thing is happening in the Federal government. FDA is forcing native US citizens who do their jobs and replaces them with H1-B visa holders who are used to corruption in government and have absolutely no problem with simply copying and pasting company’s summaries (that are even now in FDA’s review format, per FDA request (QBR format). The posting of these jobs H1-B visa holders are usually in some out of the way place where no one is likely to look.

What we need is a national database with codes for these jobs and not letting people get away with writing excessively restrictive requirements where US citizens can go to and apply for these same jobs if they have even roughly comparatable qualifications.

Along with an automatic notification whenever someone applies to hire an H1-B or H2-B visa holder.

Sen. Grassley’s been looking into this issue. I think I’ll write him.

An FDA Reviewer

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:41:18 +0000

Michelle wrote:
“This company has a practice of hiring people from abroad (specifically India),sponsoring these people, and paying them a fraction of the salary that American people are making for the same position.”

This makes no sense. If a company sponsors an immigrant for employment, they HAVE to pay the “prevailing wage”, which is determined by the labor certification board. If they don’t they can be sued and the “lost wages” recovered.

If you have evidence that this company isn’t paying the prevailing wage, please contact the USCIS.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:56:29 +0000

Doc writes: “The bigger issue is that we don’t have enough math and science majors to fill needed spots in the US economy”

Are you crazy? Have you TRIED getting a job as a scientist these days? There are just way too many PhDs in chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology, etc to fill the very few jobs available. One of the few “bright spots” seems to be academics. There seem to be a large numbr of profs retiring leaving openings for junior faculty.

By: Doc

Doc — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:34:43 +0000

Michelle,
The sooner every American citizen and politician realize we are competeing in a global economy, the sooner reality can come to the US. Corp taxes are the 2nd highest in the world and other facts of life in this country are making us non-competitive in many areas. The bigger issue is that we don’t have enough math and science majors to fill needed spots in the US economy. Most kids want to be sports, music or movie stars it seems.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:40:16 +0000

People always talk about a “new business model” for pharma, but it isn’t clear to me what that means. Our business model is this: We design/test the drugs (that costs money) then we sell the drugs (that makes the money).

Short of giving up on R&D and moving to just a sales organization, I don’t see how much of anything can fundamentally change. Several major companies have announced R&D reorganization that refocus efforts away from saturated markets and high-risk areas (cardiovascular, infectious diseases, and hormone therapy) That was pretty recently - probably after this survey was conducted. GSK seems to be doing a “fundamental restructuring” of its R&D every 5 years. (CEDDS, now “independent business units”) It’s unclear to me that these “fundamental changes” have led to anything useful.

The bottom line is this: Pharma is just a very, very difficult business to be in. For a variety of reasons that most of us are aware of, designing new drugs and getting them approved is very, VERY challenging these days. No amount of “fundamental changes” in our business model is going to alter that reality.

By: BPW

BPW — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:01:18 +0000

Gee, I thought fleecing the American public was their #1 priority. Silly me.

By: Michelle Tantaros

Michelle Tantaros — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:34:45 +0000

There is a small generic pharmaceutical company located in Middlesex, NJ by the name of Corepharma LLC. This company has a practice of hiring people from abroad (specifically India),sponsoring these people, and paying them a fraction of the salary that American people are making for the same position. This is out-sourcing right under the American people’s noses and it’s happening in our own backyard. They are paying these people well under industry standards for jobs that the American people should be doing. In our economy today it’s an outrage that this is being permitted to happen. Americans are losing jobs and not able to support their families while companies like this are hiring non-American’s to do our work. It’s no wonder that our economy is suffering and it’s an outrage. These jobs should be going to the American people and not people who are sponsored from other countries, such as India, to do our job. These peopel are not even American citizens and they are willing to take our jobs for pennies, leaving us out of work with no way of supporting our families. This company is 98% Indian and more than half of their employees are sponsored from India – why is this being permitted to happen? How is this helping our economy?