BrandweekNRX

Novartis brand director blows the whistle.

If the allegations are true in a recent wrongful termination lawsuit, filed by Carol Shull, a former Brand Director at Novartis, the company could be hiding bad numbers from investors.

Download famvir-lawsuit.pdf

Hat tip Pharmalot.

Popular posts today

1. Open letter from Pfizer Inc. scientist to CEO: If PFE was a restaurant, it would take $1,000,000 and two months to cook a hamburger.

2. Love and death.

3. The psychopath test. (This one has been on top forever . . .)

4. Pfizer sales executive arrested

5. Health: What do McDonalds' fries look like after 2 months?

Thanksgiving dinner - Will it blend?

Have a great Thanksgiving! BrandweekNRX is back on Monday.

BrandweekNRX post #2 on Reddit

Go to reddit and read the comments.

Funniest: "The restaurant analogy was clearly lacking. It left out the part where they manage to sell us that overcooked burger for $2,000,000 and still turn a profit."

BrandweekNRX post #1 on FARK

Check out FARK anytime you're bored, and . . .

don't miss the 10 comments!

Here's one of them: "Viva hamburgers!"

And another: "GTN, Ariba, IDP, SOPs GBPs PGRD ADs, CANs GPM RIF, ATS, ATS2 FDA/MHRA?Maybe Pfizer's problem is that everyone uses acronyms and no one knows WTF they are talking about anymore."

Outstanding advertising. Take a look and you'll know why.

BrandweekNRX is still looking for a great pharma ad. Tips are welcome!

Open letter from Pfizer Inc. scientist to CEO: If PFE was a restaurant, it would take $1,000,000 and two months to cook a hamburger.

I know you read this board - you mentioned that in your visit in the Atrium recently.

You want to know why colleague engagement is low. Here's a start:

Why do I have to write in an anon board? TRUST ! If I contacted you via PFE email, the only thing that would happen is that I'd either get fired ASAP, or somehow be put on a perf plan and then fired. Shoot the messenger! (Yes Jeff, no one will tell you "you, the emperor, have no clothes on". Unfortunately, you and your direct reports DO NOT get the true information. I KNOW! I've heard colleagues at lunch say "I can't tell them (upper mngt touring the GTN site) the truth to their questions - my manager would fire me!!! I have to give the "party line -- all is wonderful".

PFE always said they only hire the best. Why are there the "bottom 10%" to be fired? And then another bottom 10% And so on. Do you think that atmosphere fosters ENGAGEMENT?

I'm worried about a management team that needs a survey to figure out whether or not colleagues are engaged.

Do you think an individual or a team ultimately gets the project over the goal line? Jeff- its a TEAM. BUT, the perfromance management system is aimed at the individual. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? So you need teams to get the job done, but pick out INDIVIDUALS to reward. Backstabbing and posturing are rampant !

Efficiency??? Make scientists earning $100K+ figure out how to order stationary via Ariba rather than pay a stockroom clerk min wage to have a stationary stockroom???? Makes sense???????????????? Make scientists figure out how to reconcile hotel bills on the one or two annual trips? have to fill out an expense report for the monthly teleconf bill? have to do perf management 12 months of the year (goals, review of goals, harmonize goals, mid-year, year-end, IDP, review IDP,.......... WASTE OF TIME) SOPs GBPs ..... If PFE was a restaurant, it would take $1,000,000 AND TWO MONTHS TO COOK A HAMBURGER in PGRD!!!

Your managers (ADs, directors,...) are EXPERTS at scamming the system - their goals are designed to be able to be checked off to show a good years performance. Don't believe me! Look at Discovery - they rewarded CANs. Why were SO MANY people promoted for their CANs - and we still don't have new products on the market. They knew CANs = PERFORMANCE = PROMOTION. NOT, CANs = PRODUCTS = Performance !!!!!!

You want me to give 200% AND tell me I could be laid off in 2008, my pension plan is reduced, if I'm let go - no vacation pay,..... You don't see a problem

If Pfizer told its people "DO YOUR BEST - NO LAY-OFFS for 5 years - REASONABLE GPM - PERHAPS A FIXED % salary increase for all - rewarded risk taking - VALUED IT PEOPLE AS MUCH AS PFE WANTS US TO VALUE PFE, ....." maybe you would get your new products to market!

Bottom line - you have MANY high quality scientists that want to do a GREAT job - they are tired of the daily beatings, aggressive GPM, RIF, ATS, ATS2, transformation, .......

AND, the "big guys" get $100Ms packages for BAD PERFORMANCE. If I screw up, can I get a $5Mill package - PLEASE!!! Do you think reducing PFE diversity is good? sell fish food, sell consumer health, sell sell sell! NOW all of your eggs are in one basket! And it's a tough basket to fill - between FDA/MHRA, lawyers and insurance plans --- selling fishfood may be more profitable.

Jeff - somehow you have to figure out how to get the real information from the bottom of the pyramid. Otherwise, you will fail.

From,

"The PFantom"

Sperm bank commercial . . . or maybe not.

BrandweekNRX most readable healthcare blog!

After becoming a physician, I started my career in business in advertising; as a copywriter. So readability is key to me. After all, if you don't get your audience to read or understand your message, you waste your time.

So, it came as a pleasant surprise that the PAL blog had reviewed various tools on the net to check readability of various healthcare and pharma blogs.

Even nicer was that the two blogs I write - BrandweekNRX and Question Authority won by far, using any of the three measurements. It is also notworthy that two other professional blogs, the Wall Street Journal and Star-Ledger's Pharmalot, came in number 3 and 4.

I know, I know. Men like to sound important, and often write complicated texts and may feel it is somehow bad that I write simple prose. BUT, writing simple text is no easy task. If it was, more people would do this . . .

Here are the tools used:

The Criticsrant.com test.

The Flesh-Kincaid and Gunning Fog test.

And these are the results. What gives these tests som validity in my mind is that both blogs I write score almost exactly the same, even though they are very different:

Blog	Flesh-Kincaid Grade	Gunning Fog Index	Criticsrant.com test
Question Authority	5.11	8.33	Junior High School
BrandweekNRx	5.46	8.66	Junior High School
Pharmalot	6.5	9.0	College (postgrad)
WSJ Health Blog	6.55	10.41	High School
Kevin M.D. Health Blog	7.57	10.99	High School
PharmaGossip	7.48	11.26	College (postgrad)
PAL blog	8.10	11.95	Genius
PharmaMarketing Blog	9.06	13.01	College (undergrad)
Healthcare Renewal	9.19	13.00	College (postgrad)
PostScript	9.4	13.63	College (postgrad)
Drug Channels	9.9	13.91	College (postgrad)

And here are som explanations:

The Flesh-Kincaid Grade and the Gunning Fog Index are a rough measure of how many years of schooling it would take someone to understand the content, using two different algorithms.

They use average number of words per sentence, percentage of difficult words in the sample and average number of syllables per word to do their measurements.

The Criticsrants.com test shows what level education someone needs to understand the text. There is no explanation for how this test is calculated.

By the way, here is a comparison between the four Brandweek blogs:

Blog	Flesh-Kincaid Grade	Gunning Fog Index	Criticsrant.com test
Short Takes	3.64	6.51	Elementary School
Sticker Shock	5.37	8.19	Junior High School
BrandweekNRx	5.46	8.66	Junior High School
The Brandwiki	6.34	9.72	High School

Pfizer sales executive arrested

Police in West Little Rock, Arkansas, has arrested 37-year old Darry Hardy who's a district manager for Pfizer Inc.

The police report accuses Mr. Hardy of attempting to rape and sexually solicit two young girls, ages six and nine. Hardy is charged with one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual solicitation of a minor.

One of the alleged incident happened inside the Hardy home in their Chenal Valley neighborhood. Reports go on to say another incident happened in Hardy's mini-van.

Hardy is out on bond and will be back in court on November 27th and the arrest was first reported by THV-KTHV.

This incident has sparked an outpouring of both support and condemnations by Hardy's Pfizer coworkers, who have posted several threads on CafePharma, which have been viewed a record 10,000 times, and created 300 responses.

CafePharma initially removed the postings, then reinstated them, after it became clear that the information had been reported in the press.

One of the posts stated:

I have known this man since elementary school. He was my boyfriend during Highschool. He has never harmed anyone nor brought malice to anyone. I know his family and his siblings. There never could be a finer person. It does only take statements to accuse someone of this crime. NOT EVIDENCE @ this point. How foolish the mouth can be. So quick to accuse another.

I have not seen this man for over ten years since our last reunion. He is still the kind, soft spoken man he is know. I do not know why or how he was set up, but I do know he would never do something like this.

I pray for him & his family that they have strength to get through this. I pray that he not have fair-weathered friends that don't trust him when he needs them the most. I pray for all those involved.

I hope Darry does not loose faith, hope over this. The truth will come out eventually. If Darry reads this ... I have knowon you and your family for a long time. I will pray for you, your wife and children and know that someone does believe in your character.

Girl originally from Hometown 1988

Another post was not so sure:

Innocent until proven guilty is a noble concept. But would you let him babysit your kids in the meantime.

If he's innocent, I hope he's completely exonerated. If not...