Pharmaceutical sales reps - unburden your souls!

September 9, 2008 6:18 PM

What's it like to be a drug rep?

I'm not looking to be one, I just would like to understand them better.

I just started working as a veterinarian, and we have drug reps come through quite frequently. AFAIK there has been no James Herriots of the pharm industry to portray their daily life, their trials and tribulations.

I'm just curious - what kind of people go into it? What do they find frustrating or encouraging? How is the job structured? What metrics are they measured on? How long do people last in this type of thing? What does it take to do well? Things like that.

posted by ebellicosa to work & money (10 comments total)

Dr. Drug Rep from the NY Times magazine last year.

I think the New Yorker had a similar article more recently, but my quick search didn't turn it up.
posted by meta_eli at 6:30 PM on September 9, 2008

Then again maybe I invented the New Yorker article. This Times piece seems to be the one I was thinking of. It's a good read.
posted by meta_eli at 6:32 PM on September 9, 2008

I read this a while ago, and enjoyed it. It's biased and not very sympathetic to the profession, but provides a certain perspective on the reps themselves.
posted by pullayup at 6:46 PM on September 9, 2008

Have you seen the Cafepharma message boards? They're catty and gossipy (and anonymous), but sometimes have interesting stuff.
posted by Meg_Murry at 7:03 PM on September 9, 2008

I worked for Merck for around two years as a drug rep. It was a very interesting job, and I liked it a lot. I know a lot of people who found the job dull and boring and hated it - I think it depends on three factors:

1) What drug(s) you're assigned. I was assigned two drugs that I was convinced were vital, decently-priced, and better than the other drugs in their respective classes.

I know a lot of people doomed to have to push products that weren't vital, decently-priced, and (most important) better than the other drugs in their classes. After a innovative new drug is created, a bunch of other phama companies copy it with minor modifications. These are called "me-too" compounds. For example, Mevacor (lovastatin), which was the first cholesterol-lowering medicine to be FDA approved came out September 1st, 1987. I remember the day it was released because for my Dad, a primary-care physician, the news was earth-shattering. He still remembers what he was doing that day when he heard the news.

Anyway, Mevacor was the first of the statin class, and was quickly followed up by me-too compounds, attempting to capitalize on Mevacor's success. It's tough to be assigned to a product that doesn't have distinct advantages compared to other compounds in its class- you have to rely on relationships to sell your product rather than being able to sell it based on the science. Today, there are a half dozen highly similar products in the stain class - each has aspects that vaguely distinguish it versus its competitors, but it is still no fun to be the Lescol or Privatin rep when the Lipitor, Zocor, and Crestor reps have the market cornered on price and HDL improvements (Zocor) and LDL efficacy (Lipitor/Crestor).

Moreover, sometimes you're assigned a product that has limited value today. For me, as a science nerd (pre-med in college, EMT) I couldn't imagine trying to push a product that had superior competitors- and I was lucky enough not to have to. But think of the Privatin rep who has to try to convince doctors to write his product but without having any selling points (not cheaper than all the others, not better in terms of efficacy). It stinks.

2) What company you work for and who your manager is.

Anyone seriously considering going into pharma should think carefully before distributing their resume to every company with openings. As a doctor's kid, I asked my Dad who I should apply with and he said without a doubt, Merck. There are a number of reputable pharma companies out there (and some less than reputable) but if you care about selling based on science and good institutional ethics, Merck is tops. I still feel that way, even after all of the things that have happened to Merck in the last few years.

Merck is a company that treats its patients and its employees with respect, has generous benefits and a very decent starting salary.

I wasn't an experienced salesperson (most pharm reps start at Enterprise rent a car- most bring their "sales book" to interviews- I'd never sold anything before) I was good with the pharmacology of my products and based my selling style on providing up-to-date, relevant, novel information to the physicians and offices I worked with. My manager (who had a degree in sales) respected that and let me do my thing.

People who have bad managers don't stay in pharma long- bad managers can be the bane of your existence, calling you multiple times daily, insisting on weekly (or bi-weekly) ridealongs in which they go to every doctor's office with you, all day, and generally causing you grief.

3) What your work style is.

If you're a go-getter who enjoys both interacting with lots of people over the course of a day AND working alone all day, pharma is the place for you. I LOVED that aspect of the job. Being successful in pharma is all about the relationships you build, and too often reps ignore the "little people" who are the gatekeepers to you getting face time with your doctor. I struck up friendships (some of them enduring to this day) with the receptionists, nurses, and aides in every office I visited. Going to work was often like getting to visit all of my friends and cheer their days up a little. Medical office employees are often bored, stressed, and overworked- people rarely want to chat with the receptionist. I did, and it was a lot of fun.

Being a pharm rep can be many different things- I chose to make it about providing quality content to the physicians and offices I visited. I didn't see the doctor if they were busy- both out of respect for the offices and for the patients waiting. I provided samples only if they were needed. By treating the office with respect, you get more face time with physicians and it ultimately impacts your sales numbers, though it may cause a short-term hit (e.g. we are sometimes evaluated based on how many samples we've dispensed at an office and sometimes visits are not counted if we don't dispense samples which causes a drop in our productivity scores and results in managerial action)

A few more miscellaneous comments: Cafepharma is filled with frauds and poseurs. I wouldn't trust more than 5% of what you read in the message boards. After a few angst-filled months (while I was on the job hunt and they offered nothing, nothing, nothing relevant or helpful) I promised myself never to go back and I haven't. They stink.

It can be a job fraught with highs and lows- a really unhappy office member can really ruin your day. I spent 8 hours waiting in an office one day promised by the receptionist that the doctor would see me "in 30 minutes, I promise" and never saw the physician. An entire day with no signatures is a bad, bad thing.

The bad old days of pharma are nearly entirely gone, except with one or two blatant exceptions. One of the BigPharma companies breaks the rules all the time and pays the fines, just so their reps can continue to offer doctors really crazy stuff that is totally illegal. The most we could provide were pens (and we had them by the ton) and a free lunch, and our budgets were getting axed.

Most companies have detailed sales figures and expectations and compensate/punish accordingly. I won't go into more detail because this is my real name and I signed a confidentiality agreement, but ask your local sales reps, they may be more forthcoming in the hopes that your office will write more of their product.

And I still think that having direct to consumer marketing from drug manufacturers should be illegal, just as it is in every country (that I know of, I could be wrong) except New Zealand.
posted by RachelSmith at 7:47 PM on September 9, 2008 [8 favorites]

Well, my dad is a medical equipment sales rep, and I work in the veterinary field as well, so I think I can come at this from two angles. First off, my father is of the firm opinion that there are some people that can do sales, and there are some that can't. It can be a frustrating job largely because the decision-makers you need to talk to are (or think they are) far too busy to talk to a sales rep, so it requires a combination of persistence and luck. One of my dad's favorite techniques is to "set up shop" for the day in a break room or similar with a couple boxes of donuts or pizzas or whatever, and just talk to anyone who comes by for the free food. A good part of your success in the job is your ability to make connections and create friendly relationships with as many people in the office as possible, so that when it comes time to make a decision on what products to buy, someone will say "Hey, what about that stuff ebellicosa sells?"

Many jobs in the field are paid largely (sometimes exclusively) on commission. The better jobs offer a decent salary with the commission basically serving as a nice end-of-year bonus, but these are not the jobs you get with no experience.

I know a lot of the drug/supply reps we see in our hospital are former technicians, which means they can speak intelligently about the medical pros and cons of their product. As an emergency and referral practice, it must be very difficult to be our rep -- for some very common products we buy very little (flea/tick preventative and vaccines, for example) and new products will often either be no brainers (we love Convenia) or almost impossible to sell us (our Pfizer rep is dying to sell us some Slentrol, but it's a much better fit for general practice).
posted by Rock Steady at 7:59 PM on September 9, 2008

The better jobs offer a decent salary with the commission basically serving as a nice end-of-year bonus, but these are not the jobs you get with no experience.

I had a very decent starting salary and a promotion to an even better salary within a year of working for Merck. My commission was structured to only constitute ~15% of my salary. I came in with zero experience (except the medical experience which counted strongly in my favor).

I'm not a medical equipment sales rep, but the word when I was a rep was that those reps make their money almost entirely on commission- it is a specialty game where you have to have primary care experience as an entre. It isn't like that in most of pharma, in my experience.
posted by RachelSmith at 9:28 PM on September 9, 2008

I have two close friends who have been drug reps, both women. They say it's a soulless, but high-paying job that requires them to suspend their enlightened, feminist instincts and flirt with creepy old doctor dudes in order to build fake sales relationships. And that this is the unspoken elephant-in-the-living-room truth of the industry.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 8:51 AM on September 10, 2008

In line with M.C. Lo-Carb!'s comment (congruent, one may note, with Heather Locklear playing a sexy drug rep character on Scrubs) is this other NYT article:

Gimme an Rx! Cheerleaders Pep Up Drug Sales

Anyone who has seen the parade of sales representatives through a doctor's waiting room has probably noticed that they are frequently female and invariably good looking. Less recognized is the fact that a good many are recruited from the cheerleading ranks.

Known for their athleticism, postage-stamp skirts and persuasive enthusiasm, cheerleaders have many qualities the drug industry looks for in its sales force. Some keep their pompoms active, like Onya, a sculptured former college cheerleader. On Sundays she works the sidelines for the Washington Redskins. But weekdays find her urging gynecologists to prescribe a treatment for vaginal yeast infection.

Some industry critics view wholesomely sexy drug representatives as a variation on the seductive inducements like dinners, golf outings and speaking fees that pharmaceutical companies have dangled to sway doctors to their brands.

But now that federal crackdowns and the industry's self-policing have curtailed those gifts, simple one-on-one human rapport, with all its potentially uncomfortable consequences, has become more important. And in a crowded field of 90,000 drug representatives, where individual clients wield vast prescription-writing influence over patients' medication, who better than cheerleaders to sway the hearts of the nation's doctors, still mostly men.

"There's a saying that you'll never meet an ugly drug rep," said Dr. Thomas Carli of the University of Michigan.
posted by dhartung at 3:10 PM on September 10, 2008

"There's a saying that you'll never meet an ugly drug rep," said Dr. Thomas Carli of the University of Michigan.

One last comment: though the vast majority of reps are very attractive/fit, but in my incoming "class" of several dozen, a number were obese, several were morbidly obese, a number of the women (like me) were very short (not fitting the cheerleader stereotype) and all of us had college degrees. 10% had graduate degrees, including two pharmacists, one P.A., and one physician.

Everyone there was very bright.
posted by RachelSmith at 10:54 AM on September 12, 2008