For the past 30 or so years of his life, my father has worked various sales positions in pharmaceutical companies. After getting his Master’s degree in cellular biology, he started working as a sales representative in the department of Oncology (The study of cancer and tumors). My dad has worked at several of the top pharma companies, such as Eli Lilly, Quest Diagnostics, Boehringer Ingelheim, Prescient Life Sciences, and Merck throughout his 30+ years in pharmaceutical sales. At each company, and in every job position he’s been in, my dad has experienced much opposition due to the controversy that pharmaceuticals experience in today’s society.
There truly have been a handful of scandal
s that some pharmaceutical companies have been involved in over the past decade, and that has cast a shadow on the entire drug industry. People have come to associate pharmaceutical companies with huge money-seeking entities that scam their customers out of their money. This shadow, in some instances, has also extended to doctors and hospitals, creating in some peoples’ minds, a coalition of doctors and pharma companies that seek to make as much profit as possible and take advantage of their patients. Even though the vast majority of pharma companies have not been involved in scandals, some people still think their astronomical drug and medicine prices are so high in order to make as much money as possible while disregarding the best intentions for the ones who need their medicine. This is simply untrue. While the price for drugs is indeed extremely high and a huge burden for the people who need it, unfortunately if pharmaceutical companies were to lower the costs dramatically, they would immediately be unable to research, develop, and sell new and improved drugs. Within the department of Oncology, as with most departments in big pharma, the average cost to research, develop, test, and bring a single new drug to market is $1 billion. Another extremely important statistic is that on average, only 1 in 10 drugs successfully pass all tests and get to the market. In order to account for all the R+D costs, the drug industry must produce a profit to sustain itself. Taking this into account, the price of drugs NEEDS to be high accordingly, because if it weren’t then pharmaceutical companies couldn’t obtain the funds they need to produce medicine that can make a very positive impact on society. So the dilemma is to either charge people high prices for the drugs that can improve drastically or even save their lives, or to not produce them altogether. To me, the right decision is pretty obvious.
That right decision is obvious to my father too, and he’s had to help people understand that for the past 30 years of his job experience. For any sort of selling experience in which the potential buyer has a strong misconception about the product, service, or the seller itself, it could be difficult to come to a point of understanding. Although he’s been successful in the majority of his sales, my dad has still experienced much failure while trying to communicate with people and help them come to an understanding. He’s learned a lot through his experience, and has learned also how to experience failure and opposition and not let it discourage him from his goal of helping people receive the medicine that they need.
BoweryJE22
Austin, so your dad has worked for five different pharma companies in his career. From what you know, what has been the main cause of switching from all those different companies? Has there been a common cause for leaving or were others offering greater opportunity to grow? I am not familiar with the pharmaceutical industry so I’m just curious if that is normal to work for several companies or not. Also, do you have aspirations of tracing your father’s footsteps in that industry as well?
Thank you for your curiosity! Every switch of company my dad has made has been due to a new promising opportunity/position that has opened up at a different company. The only exception to that is an instance at Quest Diagnostics where the entire company underwent a major revamping and forced all employees to essentially re-apply for their own job positions, and my dad saw a better opportunity at Merck, so he pursued that instead. It also is decently common to work at multiple pharmaceutical companies. I’m not entirely sure what I want to do yet/what my aspirations are, but I wouldn’t say it’s off the table. Medical sales has been decently interesting to me, so I could potentially follow in his footsteps. Thanks for asking!
Austin, it is so interesting that you have had this example in sales to look up to throughout your life. I have heard many of the same complaints about pharma sales but the fact that you and your dad can look at the importance of the job and the need it meets for millions of people is a great perspective! Thanks for sharing!
Very well written! I liked hearing about the Pharma industry from you and your fathers perspective. I have my hesitations about the industry but I like to read into both sides. The pros and the cons. This post for sure has sparked my curiosity in the industry and I plan on reading more on it.
I never would have thought about misconceptions in Pharma sales. It makes sense that pricing would reflect the investment that goes into new drugs, I just never would have put it together. I think it is so interesting that misconception literally comes from not seeing a whole picture. Thanks for sharing!
Great read Austin! There are many fields of sales that require the salesperson to work against negative impressions. From my own parent’s experience as doctors, they have expressed many of the same sentiments as you have in this article. Selling pharmaceuticals is incredibly challenging when selling outside of my parent’s expertise and understanding of R and D for drugs. It is the task of the salesman to work partner with customers and help them understand what their options are along with where the prices come from.