It is not a great time to be a pharmaceutical rep

By Martha Rosenberg*

More than a decade ago, the job of the pharmaceutical rep was enviable. Direct-to-consumer advertising pre-sold many drugs so doctors already knew about them. Medical offices welcomed the reps who were usually physically attractive and brought lunch. In fact, reps sometimes had their own reception rooms in medical offices.

By 2011 thanks to drug safety scandals and new methods of marketing, the bloom had fallen off the pharma reps’ roses. The number of prescribers willing to see most reps fell almost 20 percent, the number refusing to see all reps increased by half, and eight million sales calls “could not be completed” at all, reported ZS Associates.

The top 10 drug launches of 2017

After an unusually slow year for new drug approvals—the FDA greenlighted just 22 meds in 2016—it remains to be seen whether drugmakers can do much better in 2017. One thing’s for sure, though: No matter what total the industry tallies up this year, the crop will bring some would-be blockbusters and market disrupters.

At the top of the list, according to EP Vantage’s 2017 preview, which ranks the year’s rollouts by 2022 sales, is Ocrevus (ocrelizumab), the Roche multiple sclerosis drug that’s promising to shake things up in more ways than one. In clinical trials, the candidate bested Merck KGaA's standard therapy Rebif, and it’s also gone where no other MS drug has gone before, posting positive data in patients with the primary progressive form of the disease. Those data will put the heat on other meds—and invite payers to pile pressure onto the segment, too.

Pharma's most-valuable brands 2017

U.S. pharma brands jumped in value almost across the board in Brand Finance's annual look at the nation’s most valuable. The lone exception? Valeant Pharmaceuticals
While Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Merck & Co., AbbVie, Eli Lilly and Bristol-Myers Squibb all gained brand value—$500 million, on average—Valeant dropped almost $1 billion. The embattled pharma went from $2.67 billion last year to just $1.48 billion in this year’s tally.
That's quite a turnabout: Just one year prior, Valeant had soared to join Pfizer at the top of the pharma chart, based at the time on its strategy of buying in drug development, with takeovers of Salix, Mercury Holdings and Sprout Pharmaceutical in 2015.
Brand value is different from reputation, which is why pharma could gain industrywide amid the drug-pricing controversy that raged almost all the way through 2016.
Brand Finance also tallies global brand value, and its worldwide pharma report, the top 10 global pharma brands, saw value increase unilaterally. Roche led global growth with a 56% increase in value at No. 1 and a $6.09 billion value.

What Are The Top-Selling Prescription Medications In History?

You may or may not be surprised to learn that Lipitor, a prescription medication for lowering bad cholesterol and manufactured by drug giant Pfizer, is the top-selling prescription drug of all time according to recent reports, which indicate the medication has brought in $148.7 billion in sales over the drug’s 21 years since it was approved in 1996.

What other prescription medications are the top sellers? Humira, Seretide, Remicade, Plavix, Enbrel, Rituxan, Herceptin, Avastin, and Nexium round out the top 10.

Humira, a drug from AbbVie Inc., is used for the treatment of a variety of conditions from arthritis and ulcerative colitis to plaque psoriasis and Crohn’s disease.

Seretide, also known as Advair, is a top-selling asthma inhaler drug from GlaxoSmithKline; a bronchodilator also used to treat COPD.

Remicade, manufactured by Janssen Biotech (formerly Centocor Ortho Biotech) is similar to Humira in that the drug is used to treat Crohn’s disease, plaque psoriasis, ulcerative colitis, and rheumatoid and psoriatic arthritis.

Plavix is a blood thinner brought to the market by Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi SA, and is designed for patients with coronary artery disease and may help prevent heart attack, stroke, and other heart conditions.

Most people are familiar with most of these drugs, which have brought in billions in sales since approval. For instance, Humira was approved in 2003 and through 2016 had $95.6 billion in sales. Plavix was introduced into the pharmaceutical market in 1997, and has brought in sales of $82.3 billion.

While Lipitor is still a huge seller for Pfizer, the majority of sales are in overseas markets and China since the expiration of its patent in November of 2011.

Many believe that while our new President has vowed to bring down prescription drug prices, it won’t be an easy task, or one that’s tackled during his time in office, considering other obstacles such as trade and tax reform, changes to healthcare, and more.