Nothing like injecting a little “Mission Impossible” into your daily dosage. PillSafe, a pill container designed to self-destruct when it falls into the wrong hands, has been developed as a way to prevent illegal drug diversion. Prototypes are being tested at the University of Kentucky, and many technical issues must be solved….and cost would be high. For more, read on.
Taking a break from Easter egg coloring, Spring cleaning, etc. , just learned that the AstraZeneca sales rep who approached each oncologist office visit envisioning “buckets of money” has been dismissed. This seems extremely hypocritical of the company.
The statement he made was vile, but it reflects the sales culture in the industry, rather than any personal vice on his part. It also reflects the industry’s fixation on “The Blockbuster.” No doubt he was a great sales person, focused on maximizing profits for his employer. In short, he did his job as it has been defined. The article, in an internal newsletter, was meant to inspire others to do the same.
The company fired him because the article became public, not because it hates sales and the motivation behind sales.
If AstraZeneca is really serious, it should hire him back, but make him and all its oncology sales reps (and perhaps all its reps?) undergo sensitivity training. Make them follow chemotherapy patients around for a few days and journal their responses.
-AMS
Thank you, Pharma Giles, for linking to this blog for the Thinking Blogger award. This is a small, niched and plain blog, and it was a genuine surprise and has inspired me to do such things as to get and learn Photo Shop, use graphics, get savvier about (i.e. learn something about) html and css and other things in my spare time. There are enough excellent examples out there of graphics-rich and well presented blogs.
Anyone nominated is supposed to list and link to five blogs that make them think. It’s a bit like a chain letter, perhaps, but it’s all for a good cause.
There are many wonderful blogs out there, some of which I haven’t discovered yet. But here are my pharma blog nominations. Apologies to anyone on the receiving end who considers this compliment akin to a chain letter-like nuisance. Apologies also to the great blogs I’ve left out (PharmaGossip is a favorite, but it has already been nominated; ditto for the creative Pharma Giles)
Eye on FDA is always insightful, balanced, and very well done/well presented
In the Pipeline, which needs no introduction
And yes, the always entertaining and informative PharmaMarketing Blog. John Mack also deserves special recognition for taking the time to track the growing “pharma blogosphere.” (You can relax now, John).
Drug Wonks, whether or not one agrees with the views expressed therein
Pharmalot, which, in the short time that it has been around, has raised the bar for everyone.
Have a great weekend.
AMS
Some people look down on sales people. I’m sure that most scientists do. Most journalists and editors do, too. But sales does make the world go round, and not everyone can be a great sales person. It takes nerve, personality, intelligence, and an ability to size up the listener and adjust the pitch accordingly, all in milliseconds.
People with such talents can sell anything. They don’t need to sell drugs to physicians. Do they?
One of the side benefits of personalized medicine is the fact that therapies with smaller markets would no longer require teams of sales people to descend upon physicians in their offices—people with the keen sales ability of one AstraZeneca sales director who says that he approaches each oncologist office visit with the following spirit:
“There is a big bucket of money sitting in every office. Every time you go in, you reach your hand in the bucket and grab a handful. The more times you are in, the more money goes in your pocket. Every time you make a call, you are looking to make more money.”
Peter Rost blogged about this recently, and John Mack and Ed Silverman are among those who discussed it yesterday. But if you missed it, here is its source, from Rost: AstraZeneca Sales Rep Article from Oncology Newsletter
It’s not that all sales people are greedy…maybe this “killer instinct” for making the sale requires that they distance themselves from the patients who take the drugs they sell, just as their customer physicians do, in order to perform effectively. But in the process, something important is lost.
Have you ever been to a doctor’s office where patients are taking their chemotherapy treatments? It is disturbing at first, and likely to make some people uncomfortable, but the courage and endurance of all these patients is inspiring and unforgettable.
Perhaps it is fitting to remember their suffering on this day, when Christians remember the death of Christ.
(As my son asked, Why do they call it “Good” Friday if he died? What’s so good about it?)
Until personalized cures eliminate the need for chemotherapy and other such painful treatments, perhaps more sales people could think about these patients (rather than the buckets of money) when they pay the oncologists’ offices a visit.
And now, some antidotes to the “buckets of money”: news of the American Cancer Society’s Patient Navigator System, designed to help cancer patients and their families sort through the myriad of treatment options. AstraZeneca recently donated $10 million to this program. For more information, click here.
Antidote number two: a program that AstraZeneca is helping to fund in the U.K. to train the scientists required to develop novel therapies of the future. To read, click here.
Hope you enjoy a beautiful spring weekend.
AMS
Analytical instrumentation really does help solve a number of mysteries.
One subject that’s apparently being discussed in some near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy chat rooms (places where I do not dare to tread) is NIR, gluten and wheat. An expert source informs me that melamine polymers can “fool” NIR devices into recording a higher level of protein in wheat. Melamine monomer is toxic…and is believed to be behind the recent gluten poisonings and pet deaths from tainted cat and dog food. Which raises the issue: was melamine added knowingly, by those selling the grain, or by another agent further down the distribution chain?
Apparently, the expert says, this has happened for years. “Farmers used to hose down the wheat because they were paid by the ton. NIR was used because a Kleldahl nitrogen was done for the protein (can also be fooled by melamine which is 2/3 nitrogen by weight) and Karl Fischer was done for water. Both are time-consuming analytical processes. One NIR can do both in seconds…in fact, since the later 1970s, early 1980s, all grain sold overseas was shipped from the US after being analyzed by NIR. Unfortunately, the C=N-N-H of melamine is close enough to protein amides to fool the simple filter instruments used. “
The pharma distribution chain is also open to adulteration risks, and stories like this are playing out every day, all over the world, only we can’t yet assess the size of the problem. It’s technologies like NIR that will help keep supply chains safe.
AMS
The Chinese government’s official news service reports that the nation is taking steps to secure its vaccine and plasma-based drug supplies. By the end of last month, it’s FDA equivalent, the State Food and Drug Administration, had sent over 80 superisors to 33 plasma drug manufacturing facilities in 24 locations. For more, read on. If our FDA has a resource/workload problem, imagining what China’s must contend with just boggles the mind. The brief also mentions that some of the raw materials for some plasma drugs had been “collected illegally.”
A recent article in Nature asked that question (subscription only, and unfortunately, I don’t have one). However, found this interesting discussion on a blog called Marginal Revolution:
Violating the “no politics or religion” dictum (but only briefly), this week brought a White House press conference in which new words were introduced into the English language, when Mr. Bush took a page from the rhyming Rev. Jesse Jackson with the classic phrase, “I’m the decider, you’re the suicider.”
Someone sent me a photo recently asking whether those misguided souls who carry out suicide bombing missions in anticipation of meeting virgins at the pearly gates weren’t in for quite a surprise when they arrived.
(Just mentally replace the rifles with rulers and straps. This is a family rated blog)
Using two screening technologies the names George Bush and Jesus Christ could end up on the “no fly” passenger watch list, according to an article in MIT’s Technology Review that highlights the deficiencies of government passenger screening systems. Apparently, a test of the algorithms used in these systems found that they could easily mistake O. Bin Laden for the punk rocker, former Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten. Click here to read.
GROUNDED?
Millennium Research reports that more patients are opting for a pharmaceutical alternative to surgery. Here’s what they have to say
