Strategy

What does it take to keep your employees on board? In the 1980s, employees looked for performance pay. In the 1990s, they wanted job security. Employees' needs have changed as society has, yet one thing has remained the same: Employees are always looking for something more out of their jobs. They want better quality of life at work.

In an article for the New York Times, reporter Damien Cave pointed out how few heroes have been publicly recognized by the Administration in the current war. Despite the fact that there have been incredible acts of heroism and gutsy leadership on the ground of this Iraq war, the powers that be, for the most part, are calling no attention to it-at least no prime-time attention. Damien's most damning example came from Major Bruce Norton, a military historian and author of Encyclopedia of American Military Heroes, who recounted how a Marine recently received his Navy Cross, the second-highest military honor-not with ceremony and honor, but in the mail.

Valeant is banking on Viramidine, a pro-drug of its longtime cash cow, ribavirin, to catapult the company to the next level.

Growing by Indication, Genentech Has a New Type of Blockbuster

No brand manufacturers plan to market generic versions of their own product, at least not until the patent expires. And why would they? As long as the branded version enjoys patent protection, marketing a cut-rate product would eat away profit margin during the years when a drug makes the most money.

To get along with the CFO, drug companies need to express more data in units that a health plan can integrate into its own internal actuarial analysis. The financial decision makers at a health plan want to know how a new drug affects the value of expected claims on the whole.

There comes a point when people have enough stuff in their lives, but they can never have enough meaning. Leaders have to find opportunities for their eams to do more than turn the machine of profit.

Market researchers often fail to realize that whenever they collect competitor information they are in fact collecting competitive intelligence. The same is true in reverse.

When rebate strategies are coupled with sales force and DTC spending, it results in "margin-negative" business-that is, sales that bring in less than the marginal cost of selling, promoting, and manufacturing the drug.

BMS' use of investigational toxicology puts it in good stead with FDA, which, under its Critical Path initiative, is pushing for more complete toxicology packages.

Leadership evolves from the dynamic of particular situations. Without Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill may have been remembered as a quirky backbencher.

Eyes in the Back of Your Head

We all remember the Greek myth about old King Sisyphus. In life, he was a trickster, but the gods got the last laugh in the afterlife by making it his fate to push a huge boulder up a mountain only to see it roll down just before reaching the summit-again and again for all eternity.

Without common reporting standards in place, researchers have little incentive to share data with scientists elsewhere in the company. When researchers don't sharedata on a regular basis, they can begin to feel proprietary about their work-and even less inclined to disclose their results.

Without common reporting standards in place, researchers have little incentive to share data with scientists elsewhere in the company. When researchers don't sharedata on a regular basis, they can begin to feel proprietary about their work-and even less inclined to disclose their results.

Accept distortions and untruths. Don't try to undo them. The point is not to win an argument; your critics' views are legitimate, irreversible realities. It's time to give the public something new to think about.

Pharma trial sponsors and their CROs should enlist the support of high-level executives to make sure designated decision makers are fully confident in their ability to act.

Pharma companies are committed to using electronic data capture in clinical trials. Technology adoption will continue to grow, as FDA and consumers want faster safety data.

Pharma companies want to promote their own, rather than hiring senior people away from competitors or other industries. But given the narrow backgrounds of the coming generation, fewer and fewer managers have the coordination and foresight needed to succeed in a general management job.

I realized that, as president of a pharmaceutical company, I am now a representative of the entire industry. As such, my toughest challenge is listening to and seeing the kind of scrutiny our industry is taking.

If you work for a company that isn't interested in increasing sales across your portfolio, don't read this article. Otherwise, you'll learn that your district managers (DM) are the keys to doing just that. DMs select and hire new sales reps, guide product knowledge, develop selling skills, provide feedback, and take action to turn around or terminate poor performers. The average industry DM is responsible for generating tens of millions of dollars in sales through his or her teams. But, only 45 percent of industry DMs achieve their sales goals. Companies that succeed in raising the overall effectiveness of their DMs will create sustainable competitive advantage.

When translating English materials into other languages, be careful of words that mean one thing in one dialect and something else in another dialect. Otherwise, you run the risk of referring to coaches as animal trainers.

Institutions bring value to industry not only through shared coursework or customized training programs, but also through leveraging the intellectual property of institutional personnel for corporate problem solving.

Conventional wisdom says that generics businesses are a drain on valuable resources. But these units are much less prone to the disastrous drug safety panics that Big Pharma has recently endured.

Every quarter, pharmaceutical manufacturers confront a dizzying array of price reporting obligations. Participation in the Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Administration (VA), and Public Health Service (PHS) programs requires manufacturers to collect, organize, distill and manipulate vast quantities of information, and to generate from that data reportable figures that can have an enormous impact on the company's bottom line. It is critical that these figures be correct, not only to help ensure the integrity of these public programs, but because submission of false data to a federal agency is a prosecutable criminal offense, and the civil penalties and exposure can be staggering.

Contrary to myth, Paragraph IV certifications are not reserved only for blockbusters or high-volume primary care products. Three products under recent Paragraph IV challenges had sales of less than $50 million.

You can have a biotech company with a great technology base, but if it doesn't have a product in Phase II development, Wall Street won't reward the company by increasing the value of its stock price. When products are valued over technology, there is a higher premium for commercially-focused business leaders.

MVPs go beyond numbers to create extraordinary value for companies and their stockholders. They are the top two to five percent of employees. In other words, if you were to lose 100 people, which two to five would you protect at all costs?

As a reputation driver, ethical behavior has increased steadily in importance over the last three years.

Citing cherry-picked patients, unrealistic dosing, and placebo control, payers will increasingly require that the proof for payment of drugs must come from head-to-head trials.