1. “Why Big Pharma Companies No Longer Need Sales Reps For Selling Their Products” A Personal Story & 1/25

2. My first job out of College after I left University College Dublin was as a pharmaceutical sales rep back in 1993. It was for a big company called Boehringer Ingelheim and I got paid the princely sum of £12,000 and got a nice Renault Laguna thrown into the bargain.

3. I was based in Cambridge in the UK and my patch was Peterborough, Cambridge and parts of Norfolk. I was selling 2 drugs at the time, one called Motens for hypertension and another called Combivent which was for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease COPD.

4. We had 50 reps across the UK. The job itself was very intense and the burnout rate was quite high. It was rarely the case that Pharma sales reps lasted for more than a couple of years in any one company. Competitors frequently poached the best reps from the other companies.

5. We had targets to hit with the amount of GPs to see in the morning and Hospital Consultants in the afternoon. I would invariably arrive up to a surgery around 8.30am and hope that the GP would see me if he didn’t have any patients.

6. It was often the case that the surgeries were rammed full of people. One of the reasons for this was that on the NHS you didn’t pay for the appointment or for your medication. This often meant that anybody would see a GP for any sniffle.

7. It also meant from my perspective that it was hard to get GPs to see you, as naturally the patient comes first as it rightly should. The biggest problem I had was getting past the gatekeeper who was normally a middle-aged battle axe whose sole job was to prevent entry.

8. The reps often came laden with doughnuts and similar type bribes to try and see the GP and hit their targets. We would normally have some freebies to give to the battle axe & the GP. Pens, stethoscopes, notebooks & diaries were heavily branded with drugs name etc.

9. However, the big carrot we dangled in front of them was a trip abroad. On one trip I took 5 doctors with me for 3 nights away in Mannheim in Germany. These GPs were deliberately hand picked in order to try and generate as much sales as possible from them in the months ahead.

10. Remember as well that I was only 1 of 50 reps on the trip. Each rep had 5 GPs. So these were monster trips that cost a substantial amount of money. You can be 100% sure though that the companies knew what the Return On Investment was going to be & it was very profitable.

11. These trips were allegedly “educational” where the GPs attended lectures in the morning and were wined and dined in the afternoon. GPs had to get educational points on these trips. It was the only way pharma companies could get around the system.

12. It was my first experience of the “Law of Reciprocity”. Persuasion by reciprocation is based on the law of reciprocity. It’s considered by many to be the most powerful law of human nature. Basically, it states that..

13. “If you do something nice for me I’ll do something nice for you. I feel obligated to reciprocate.” For example, if we go out to lunch and I pick up the bill, you almost always offer to pay for it next time. Next time we go out to lunch, you insist on paying for the bill.

14. This technique was very much in play with the GPs. Because the pharma company paid for the trip, we expected sales in return. Putting it bluntly it was an inducement or call it a bribe if you will. It was an unconventional "Law of Reciprocity".

15. If a patient was suffering from Hypertension we were expecting the GP to prescribe our drug. Checking out the sales figures in the months after the trip, you would normally see a substantial bump in your sales. You could call it a second wave !!

16. Naturally, these sales figures didn’t last very long as the GPs would move on to the next drug company and next trip. It was a merry-go-round. So even back in the day, 25 plus years ago, pharma companies knew what they were up to.

17. Many of the same techniques are still in play today although its moved to an entirely different level. To be honest I don’t know if pharma sales reps are out on the road cold-calling to GPs. What I do know though is that other techniques are being used.

18. What we're seeing now is that the media are doing all the heavy lifting for Big Pharma. Just earlier this week I saw paid advertising on the Irish Times Facebook page where they were very blunt about it.

19. The Irish Times are in a paid partnership with said company. No conflict of interest whatsoever obviously. But that’s not all. https://twitter.com/fasenfeld/status/1339524168577105921

20. Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE are spewing out non-stop propaganda using kids as bait. Beyond shameful. I wrote a thread about it last month. https://twitter.com/fasenfeld/status/1334435428246622210

21. TV presenters on RTE look straight into the cameras at the beginning of a show and say “Don’t worry, the vaaa1x is nearly here”. You don’t need sales reps when you have a captive, gullible audience on the stupid box. Celebrities are also being used to endorse big Pharma.

22. This is a great way of marketing to the younger generation. Who needs pharma sales reps ? Professors at universities such as Trinity & UCD are constantly appearing on the airwaves and TV talking about Covid and vaaa1x. They are undoubtedly on the payroll of someone.

23. There is also never an alternative viewpoint. Who needs pharma sales reps ?

GPs themselves are being paid to give the vaccine to people as well. Their pockets will be well-lined if there is a big take-up. And I ask one final time. Who needs pharma sales reps ?

24. The landscape of selling pharma products has dramatically changed in the last 25 plus years. Pharma sales reps are still very much in existence but in a different guise entirely. Very much a case of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. END

25. Thanks for reading. If you would like to read my additional threads, they are all in the one place at this link. https://twitter.com/fasenfeld/status/1340351027938283520