Pfizer pfuels burst of blogger speculation
October 16, 2009 – 4:31 pmThe week ended in a big way, as Pfizer’s acquisition of Wyeth became final and FDA approved GlaxoSmithKline’s Cervarix vaccine for cervical cancer. Also, debate continued about the healthcare reform bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee last week. And fortunately for the industry, no recent bombs about ghostwriting or other scandals hit the air. (The cynical side of me says just give it some time, though.)
One big happy family
Jacob Goldstein at the Wall Street Journal Health Blog gathered some news about which Pfizer and Wyeth sites would be staying open and which would be closing. The news from my area (Philadelphia) is mixed; Wyeth’s Great Valley facility is closing, but Wyeth’s Collegeville headquarters will become Pfizer’s specialty care unit headquarters (this makes sense as the vaccines business heads are already there, such as Gene Germano, one of the Wyeth executives who made the transition to Pfizer). And here’s Mr. Goldstein’s initial take on where the job losses would be.
At The Scientist Blog, Alla Katsnelson says research jobs will be the hardest hit by the merger. Brett Chase at Portfolio’s blog, Heavy Doses, takes up the same theme.
Dr. Derek Lowe at In the Pipeline says he’s hearing that for the R&D folks, it could take as long as 60 days to find out who’s cut and who’s staying. “We’ll see what the real timetable is, but that’s enough to make me wonder if there’s any way they could have found to make the whole business more excruciating,” he says. “But it’s a sad day. I think the Pfizer-Wyeth merger is a bad idea which will do bad things. I wish it hadn’t happened, just like I wish many of the other mergers on this scale had not happened, and I wish that I could have some hope that this sort of thing won’t happen again. But the lessons are taking a long time to be learned.”
Ed Silverman at Pharmalot notes that tucked within the announcement was the news that Pfizer is now forming an executive compliance committee. “This innovative notion comes hard on the news that Pfizer paid a record-setting, ground-breaking, chair-swiveling, eye-rolling, jaw-dropping, $2.3 billion fine for illegally marketing several drugs, including Bextra, Zyvox, Geodon and Lyrica, over several years - even as other corporate integrity agreements were in force,” he says. “One has to wonder - what took them so long?”
Jim Edwards at Bnet also gathers news about which sites are closing, as well as how the clock is ticking on a tax abatement deal at Pfizer’s New London, Conn., research campus. Mr. Edwards also picked up this thread at Cafe Pharma, in which Anonymous speculates that the board is forcing CEO Jeff Kindler out in March 2010. O RLY?
And at the Impactiviti blog, Steve Woodruff ponders what he’d be doing if he were directing social media at Pfizer. He’s critical that the only word about the merger on Twitter from the company was “one boring Tweet with a press release link.” (There was also a link to an interview that CEO Jeff Kindler did with CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo, but that happened after Mr. Woodruff posted his blog, and still, it’s just a link.) “The fact is, Pfizer has not been very aggressive with their social media presence,” Mr. Woodruff says. “While they have a dynamic communications guy (Ray Kerins) who is shaking up how they relate to journalists and others, I’m not seeing a whole lot of progress on-line. Ray is a great guy; but I’m seeing other companies moving forward more purposefully. … There are much smaller companies who are being quite pro-active in this space. This would be a very good time for Pfizer seize the mantle of leadership.” Sing it, Steve!
The incorrigible Jack Friday of PharmaGossip used Google’s Sidewiki to comment on the merger news. “Love the new logo!” he says. “So subtle … wonder how much it cost?”
Around and about …
Ed Silverman at the reborn Pharmalot highlights a study that shows the lack of training available for pharmaceutical sales representatives. The comments are particularly interesting. Mr. Silverman also picks up the news that Bristol-Myers Squibb is cutting the Abilify salesforce, AstraZeneca has to pay $14.7 million to Kentucky, and that the Labor Department agrees that pharma sales reps should be paid overtime.
Jack Friday at PharmaGossip, who linked to Mr. Silverman’s post about sales rep training, brings us the reptosaurus, a dying breed.
And on Pharmageddon 2012’s YouTube Channel, we have the zombie rep series. (My personal favorites are “The Lunch and Learn” and “Desperation.”) The series of videos has hit a nerve on the GlaxoSmithKline board at Cafe Pharma. (I know now who is behind the Pharmageddon 2012 campaign, and we will be having a big reveal in the November issue of Med Ad News.)
Jacob Goldstein at the Wall Street Journal Health Blog says the Senate Finance Committee version of the healthcare bill can still be good for Chantix, since the bill would make Medicaid programs pay for smoking cessation drugs (right now, it’s optional). He observes that the drug industry likes the reform bill, but unions don’t.
Mr. Goldstein also notes that Genentech is getting bigger in the United States, at least in name. Roche is rebranding all of its U.S. products as Genentech, even the non-biotech ones. (If you thought Roche and Genentech’s pipeline and product portfolio were one undifferentiated amorphous glob before, just wait.) And he details why other drug companies want to be more like Johnson & Johnson.
Laura Landro at the Wall Street Journal Health Blog has some numbers on how much it can cost to treat antibiotic-resistant infections.
Jim Edwards at Bnet Pharma says there are winners and losers in the Senate Judiciary Committee bill that would ban pay-for-delay deals between pharma and generics companies. (Mr. Silverman’s take on the news is here.) He also has the news that Pfizer’s motion about witness tampering in the Neurontin case was denied. “The ruling draws to a close a gossipy sideshow that mostly has nothing to do with the meat of the case: Whether Pfizer wrongly promoted Neurontin so that patients who never should have been on the drug ended up with prescriptions for it,” he says
Also from Mr. Edwards: Despite its legal verdict in Alabama, AstraZeneca’s potential legal bills may be 16% of its profits; in the category of strange but true: How a monopoly over an HIV drug actually caused lower sales for Abbott; and in the category of barking bat-moon crazy, the homes of Bristol-Myers Squibb, Abbott, and Novartis executives were targeted in late-night protests by animal rights activists. “Normally, a bit of late-night shouting might be written off as jarring but harmless. But ever since activists burned down the vacation home of Novartis CEO Daniel Vasella in the summer, the fact that activists know where these exectives live has to be seen in a more serious light,” he says
Steve Niles at the Med Ad News Insider blog notes that clinic-specific Websites are on the rise. Also at the Med Ad News Insider, Gina Monari reports that the Lowe Healthcare agencies will remain intact even as Interpublic merges parent Lowe Worldwide with Deutsch. (Mr. Edwards’ take on the Lowe/Deutsch integration is here, and it’s not laudatory.)
Ms. Monari also wrote on a comScore study that showed online advertising raised awareness and favorability of pharmaceutical brands. Rich Meyer of World of DTC Marketing wasn’t buying the study’s conclusions. “Do pharma companies need a branded website? Absolutely, but they need to monitor the website via great web analytics to determine what pages are being used by website visitors and what information visitors feel is credible,” he says. “With the public more skeptical of the drug and medical device industry one can only assume that patients/consumers will go to product websites but will view content with a great deal of skepticism until they verify with others, and their HCP’s, that the medication will do what it promises without increased risk of feeling worse.”
At GlaxoSmithKline’s More than Medicine Blog, there’s some celebration of the company’s joining the U.S. Patent and Trade Office in a motion to dismiss litigation over regulations published in 2007. “Our position was that the proposed rules threatened to diminish our ability to patent our medical innovations and would ultimately have harmed patients by reducing protection for pharmaceutical investments,” the poster, Sherry, says. “Importantly, today’s announcement marks a significant step forward in improving collaboration between industry and the USPTO and is evidence of the USPTO’s renewed support for and responsiveness to patent applicants, led by the recently appointed head of the PTO, David Kappos.”
Dr. Daniel Carlat at the Carlat Psychiatry Blog says one CME company was guilty of running a Seroquel-biased CME program, according the ACCME. He picked up the story from Bernard Carroll at the Healthcare Renewal blog, who had filed the complaint about the program and has many followup questions.
Dr. Robert Goldberg at DrugWonks puts his spin on text from the healthcare reform bill released by the Senate Finance Committee.
John Mack at the Pharma Marketing Blog notes how Schering-Plough told Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Vermont doctors “No ice cream for you!” at a conference in Boston. He also claims that a Tweet by Boehringer Ingelheim violates FDA regulations like the 14 paid search ads did.
CNBC’s Mike Huckman at Pharma’s Market likes the turnaround story of Vanda Pharmaceuticals. He’s also getting his flu shots, including the H1N1 when it’s available. (You won’t catch him calling out sick from the flu this winter!)
Sally Church at the Pharma Strategy Blog gives us her take on strategic trends in the pharmaceutical industry.
At the FDA Law Blog, Kurt R. Karst analyzes the Senate’s Generic Loophole Bill.
At Patent Docs, Donald Zuhn examines an NEJM paper that says five years of data exclusivity would be sufficient for biologics.
