Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 08/05/2012 - 16:54.
"The real problem was (and is) that too many things which shouldn't have made it over the wall did. In the climate I've described above ask yourself who benefits from this. Then you have your answer as to why it happened."
I've worked for four big Pharma's over the years and never have I seen the level of incompetence exhibited by Reverend Gump. Before "throwing things over the wall" one would think there should be some dilegence and scientific rigor applied to the "thing". By not doing so, he jeopardized not only the careers of the people he worked with, but the very health of the company. Look at his abysmal legacy. AND HE STILL WORKS FOR PFIZER!!
Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 07/05/2012 - 11:29.
"How can someone with only a handful of publications, and only ONE first authored paper in a crappy journal long ago, rise to the level of a CSO and SVP in a research organization??"
Pfirstly, Pfizer-Sandwich wasn't a research organisation. It was a research and development organisation. There is a difference. The only research that got done was research geared towards development. Most research wasn't done to publication standards. It was just done well enough to give you an answer. You didn't get on by publishing stuff and nor should you. You got on by being involved with successful projects.
I'm not defending the guy. I still carry the knife wounds. But you have to understand that success at Sandwich revolved around getting yourself into a postion where you could claim credit because you were involved with something that made it over the wall.
The real problem was (and is) that too many things which shouldn't have made it over the wall did. In the climate I've described above ask yourself who benefits from this. Then you have your answer as to why it happened.
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 06/05/2012 - 19:26.
We didn't discover ANY money-making drugs at Sandwich this century. Maybe the site closure, at least partly, was OUR fault?
Maybe the system hindered us (and we all want to sock it to The Man sometimes) but if we were all so clever then, regardless of the ordure that floated to the top, we'd have discovered something marketable...wouldn't we? I mean, we really were that clever weren't we? Weren't we?
Or maybe life's not meant to be fair and we'll all have to follow some of our old colleagues to China or get used to working outside of big pharma...
...Pfizer Sandwich is an ex-site. It has ceased to be. It is no more. The Pfizer Blue is not pining for us to come back. It's DEAD.
Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 28/04/2012 - 18:08.
"there are lots of contributing factors to the demise of sandwich e.g. rolph, mackay, mackenzie, merson and their junior clones. regardless, its now done and as an ex-sandwich employee, i'm gutted for you all. if there is any justice you will all win the lottery while the corporate creeps in lower-middle management will get the sexually transmitted diseases they deserve. good luck guys."
I never, ever understood why Merson did not get fired long ago when I was at Sandwich. How can someone with only a handful of publications, and only ONE first authored paper in a crappy journal long ago, rise to the level of a CSO and SVP in a research organization??
Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 28/04/2012 - 15:22.
Given that Pfizer wanted to completely exit the site by the end of 2012 is there any sign of a new landlord for the so called "Discovery Park?"
Or will it just be like a huge leech sucking cash from the mothership as it sinks into the swamp?
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 22/02/2012 - 22:10.
Quote: "the top brass will all cling to the wreckage long enough to get their pensions and payoffs"
Never a truer word said. Top brass will protect one another and ensure that they all get filthy rich, then like the rats they are they will grab the only lifeboats and flee the sinking Pharma ship.........
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 22/02/2012 - 10:02.
So successful it's been completely shut down! Tool.
UK Pharma is Pfucked anyway, the top brass will all cling to the wreckage long enough to get their pensions and payoffs. The rest of you would do well, to change careers. Get out of chemistry and out of the lab, you'd be surprised what jobs you will be able to land competing as you will be now with the morons who often get good jobs as there is no-one else halfway decent to give them to.
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 22/02/2012 - 05:06.
This thread is so funny for people who work hard and work smart.
The real reason Pfizer Sandwich has been so incredibly successful is that they don't hesitate to eliminate under-performing employees. The dead wood are gone the same day they are hired.
This site clearly attracts all those worthless losers that didn't make the cut.
Suck it, you losers! Bad apples!
You don't make the cut!
You suck. Stop your whining.
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 30/12/2011 - 22:51.
Quote: "oh yeah and while I'm on - nice one Pfizer for rescuing all the UK top brass. The very morons who got the whole thing in the mess its in. may you all rot in hell. God bless america."
Nothing personal. You were all expendable. The top brass stuck together and protected each other because that way they all stay employed. Just corporate business as usual.......
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 13/12/2011 - 22:15.
oh yeah and while I'm on - nice one Pfizer for rescuing all the UK top brass. The very morons who got the whole thing in the mess its in. may you all rot in hell. God bless america.
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 13/12/2011 - 18:49.
Today I left Pfizer with a very healthy redundancy package, 2 months off and a new job to go to. Thank you Pfizer for being so incredibly generous, this will be the best Christmas ever. Good luck to all Sandwich colleagues, current and recent. I wish you all a successful and prosperous 2012 and beyond.
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 02/11/2011 - 12:06.
Pfizer research was a good example of the old quote (Edison?):
"Success has many parents but failure is an orphan"
Plenty of people quick to claim the credit when it went well (or, more acurately, fiddle the numbers to make it look like it was going well) but when things failed it was always somebody else's fault.
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 23:00.
Marviroc won't make any money but its still a good drug. Shame about Champix and it's nasty side effects though, what was wrong with just quitting and being a man about it.
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 13:19.
That's the way it works and no, I can't think of anyone left who might be able to find a new medicine. In the last 10 years Pfizer has spent $70BB+ on R&D and has 3 drugs to show for it - Selsentry, Champix and Sutent. And yet not 1 of their senior leaders has been Pfired. JLaM did at least fall on his (gold plated) sword over torceptrapib and Mac went to AZ but no VP or above has ever gotten Pfired for being unable to find a drug. Most VC's will look at the people they are investing in as much as the business plan/products - this does not seem to happen with pension fund managers/analysts and big pharma however. I sold all my remaining stock last week.
Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 31/10/2011 - 21:44.
How come it is always 'the dudes that are out of a job by now' who get what the problem is and how to fix it. Is there anyone left at Pfizer who you think can find drugs again???
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 25/10/2011 - 22:27.
Not sure I agree with Mac introducing CAN goals - he has never had an idea in his life - he is a 'great people person' - apparently...No, it was JLaM who drove CAN goals as a way of measuring 'shots on goal' his great vision to increase productivity. This then drove all the investments in the 'Big 4', LSB, LSBII etc. We had lots of cash and were a salesmans dream - so many careers were driven skywards by spending money on a big ticket items and then producing 'data' to say it was all working wonderfully...before it all quietly disappeared 5-8 years later. To be fair, we did end up with a great compound producing machine (and HTS does play a part in that). The clinical molecules are of better quality and are more likely to test a mechanism in PoC across a wider variety of targets. However, this just served to highlight the flaw in the 'shots on goal' approach. Unless you can get to PoC for a total cost of $250-500K (instead of $25-50MM - the current cost) then you can never afford enough 'shots on goal' to hit the right target in the right patient - there are just too many bad places to shoot at. The initial plans assumed 1 in 8 to 1 in 40 attrition rate - even this is unaffordable and has never been achieved - CAN goals just drove a more risky/desparate/anything will do approach to target selection and a 1 in 100 output - and hence good scientists being put out of work and sites being shut. Although too late for SDW, the industry has to get better at target selection - I cannot see the costs coming down enough (outsourcing does not save any money, only makes it easier to decrease costs as you shrink as you can just stop spending rather than sacking/shutting sites - too messy/slow) to allow a failure rate much more than 1 in 2 or 3. Effectively, when you put chemists on a project you must have rock solid data that says this target will do something in a defined patient population. This is a completely different approach to now. Currently, it is just enough to argue for your target with extreme vigour, defending at all costs to protect your career than to produce solid data. The blurring of facts and assumptions, misrepresentation of data, aggresively fighting your corner - all traits of those who rose up over the years. And of course CAN goals - even when a CSO knows it is wrong to let the target go forward, you still need to produce something this year - a perfect storm. And you can't say it definitely won't work - right?! Of course, some targets you may still have problems finding molecules for and some targets may give better than placebo but not beat SoC but ouright clinical flatliners (FAAH anyone?) can not be tolerated or the industry will become a lot smaller than it is now. There are ways to achieve this but I fear many of the remaining few are so wedded to the 'shots on goal' approach that has defined their careers so far they don't have the ability to change - I hope I'm wrong.
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 25/10/2011 - 11:21.
not sure i agree with that. It was Mac the knife who introduced the CAN targets. Not SC nor Wylie. Further, Wylie wanted HTS to be one possible avenue for lead generation, not the be-all-and-end-all. Further, SC was a vocal critic of CHTS (remember that fiasco?) and constantly questioned the chemical viability and drugability of the compound file. Wylie also constantly questioned the validity of data from artificial, overexpressed systems sometimes with receptors forcibly coupled to 2nd messenger systems that they did not influence in vivo. I have lost count of the number of meetings where he piped up with "but what does it do in an animal". Something which he has now been proven correct on. Further, the great white elephant of the LSB came under the watch of MM and Rolph. There was nothing wrong with rapid growth and we had the income to support it from Istin, Diflucan and latterly Viagra. But investing it in the wrong people and wrong technologies was primarily the fault of the later bunch. Again, i'm not saying campbell and wylie were perfect - far from it; their reluctance to kill of duff projects early was legendary while SC in particular seemed to have blinkers on when it came to certain perfectly valid targets (e.g. "20 years of adenosine research has given us adenosine"). The fact remains that SC, MW etc had experience at bring things through from lab to market. Thos who cam after did not (and still don't).
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 25/10/2011 - 10:19.
Interesting historical perspective but perhaps a bit rose tinted. It was much more fun when those characters were around and work was done with much less head count. However it was on the watch of most of those listed that the companies goals were ridiculous, head count was increased and companies were taken over. The job losses came much later.
Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 24/10/2011 - 17:04.
The remainder of Pfizer Sandwich is now, as I am sure most are aware - largely Pharm Sci. Pilot Plant is about 15% by headcount I believe. The Pharm Sci groups have lost a lot of good people too, but the remainder are not all terrible (this is from someone who has left).
It would be good for the area if the site has some long term future, though it's hard to tell at the moment.
Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 24/10/2011 - 16:06.
whether or not it is venomous is neither here nor there. Sandwich lost most of its real technical and scientific talent between 1999 and 2005. Voluntarily. And for all their faults, we lost some strong managers (Campbell, Wylie etc). Ask yourself why the best left when the company was at its strongest and most proftable. The inconvenient truth is that those who did not leave, remained at Sandwich simply for family commitments and mortgages. They were settled and they thought it would last forever. And the laughable HR policy (initiated by the cheesy tedman and continued by short-arsed dermot) meant we attracted and recruited the wrong sort of people for the wrong reasons. They simply wanted the pay check that came with Pfizer. They had no interest or understanding of drug discovery (Gale for christ sake). This is when the real damage was done because it coincided with Zoolander Rolph coming from animal health (still the most moronic decision in industry history) while marty mac capitalized on the chance to progress his career, not by being productive, but by slashing and burning and being a first class see-you-next-tuesday. Simultaneously, the cancerous HTS approach of speed-over-quality spread into other groups (data was never analysed correctly - the GI group routinely ignored Hill Slope data from binding and functional tests) which led to the wrong sort of people being promoted based on false measures of productivity. A perfect storm of stupidity. What happened to sandwich was entirely predictable - and indeed, was predicted by most of the individuals who left before 2005. The only shock was that it took so long. Those cut over that past 2 years or so never questioned company direction or their own data, allowed politics to suffocate their scientific integrity and hence were largely responsible for their own fate. I understand that they are angry, but I also know that they are too stupid to realize why.
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 23/10/2011 - 12:11.
Even now, those few hundred left at Pfizer Sandwich still think that they are, in some way, more extra-special or talented than the thousands who have been laid off. In truth, they are just the last few winners in a game of musical chairs that has been going on at that site for the past six years, with ever fewer seats for the bums there to occupy.
What now remains of the site is there only to support that most monstrous of Pfizer white elephants, the Pilot Plant. That itself survives only because no-one senior would ever admit to spending $300m on a pilot plant that was less efficient and productive than the converted railway shed it replaced. In the first half of the last decade, Pfizer politics dictated that all of Pfizer's other clinical API plants around the world were to be closed so that inconvenient comparisons could no longer be made - along with API for clincial trials.
Once small-scale API manufacturing is finally outsourced over the next 2-3 years (and for once, with genuine quality, cost and efficiency gains), what's left of Pfizer Sandwich will also close and the round of musical chairs there will finally cease. And good riddance.
Those who are still left and who think they are so much better than the "dead wood" that preceded them out of the gate will find life pretty hard. The majority of so-called "dead wood" has found fertile soil and taken root elewhere. Opportunities for the functionally useless still left at Sandwich, and who know nothing other than The Pfizer Way, are now pretty scarce indeed.
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 23/10/2011 - 00:57.
The lottery went along the lines of 'have you towed the line, yes or no?', 'did you ever suggest any improvement in your line of research?', '...ever ask why?....?';.....ever challenge anything?' Pretty sure you know the reason behind the snide comments, sleep well. And again twat.
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 23/10/2011 - 00:44.
The most experienced chemists went early, remember those, the ones who gave unpaid apprenticeships to the new wonder kids ( retirement ). In the end everyone went regardless of self opinion, twat. Hope your enjoying the new world.
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 09/10/2011 - 02:46.
aaaaawwwwww! Did you get sacked and think that you weren't dead-wood? Did you feel that you were super valuable to the organization? You're right, it probably wasn't personal, you were just unlucky in the "lottery". hahahaha
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 06/10/2011 - 22:37.
"Pfizer has been laying staff off at Sandwich for the last 7 or 8 years. After each round of redundancies many of those who remained were pretty cavalier in their attitude to those who had lost their jobs ("Just getting rid of the dead-wood"). It never was a case of getting rid of the dead-wood. It was a lottery in which some very able people were sacrificed and those who were left didn't care as long as it wasn't them."
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 06/10/2011 - 20:58.
Indeed. But there is a flipside. Pfizer has been laying staff off at Sandwich for the last 7 or 8 years. After each round of redundancies many of those who remained were pretty cavalier in their attitude to those who had lost their jobs ("Just getting rid of the dead-wood"). It never was a case of getting rid of the dead-wood. It was a lottery in which some very able people were sacrificed and those who were left didn't care as long as it wasn't them. The people who are leaving now are getting the same level of support as those who went before.
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 05/10/2011 - 06:03.
Let's not be so flippant people. Losing your job, the security of your home and potentially a future in the career you've spent decade building is not a 'no one gives a shit' moment. Come on down to Kent and let's discuss it if you feel your point is valid.
All posts
"The real problem was (and
"The real problem was (and is) that too many things which shouldn't have made it over the wall did. In the climate I've described above ask yourself who benefits from this. Then you have your answer as to why it happened."
I've worked for four big Pharma's over the years and never have I seen the level of incompetence exhibited by Reverend Gump. Before "throwing things over the wall" one would think there should be some dilegence and scientific rigor applied to the "thing". By not doing so, he jeopardized not only the careers of the people he worked with, but the very health of the company. Look at his abysmal legacy. AND HE STILL WORKS FOR PFIZER!!
"How can someone with only a
"How can someone with only a handful of publications, and only ONE first authored paper in a crappy journal long ago, rise to the level of a CSO and SVP in a research organization??"
Pfirstly, Pfizer-Sandwich wasn't a research organisation. It was a research and development organisation. There is a difference. The only research that got done was research geared towards development. Most research wasn't done to publication standards. It was just done well enough to give you an answer. You didn't get on by publishing stuff and nor should you. You got on by being involved with successful projects.
I'm not defending the guy. I still carry the knife wounds. But you have to understand that success at Sandwich revolved around getting yourself into a postion where you could claim credit because you were involved with something that made it over the wall.
The real problem was (and is) that too many things which shouldn't have made it over the wall did. In the climate I've described above ask yourself who benefits from this. Then you have your answer as to why it happened.
No drugs from Sandwich for a
No drugs from Sandwich for a very long time, only talk, politics and arrogance.
We didn't discover ANY
We didn't discover ANY money-making drugs at Sandwich this century. Maybe the site closure, at least partly, was OUR fault?
Maybe the system hindered us (and we all want to sock it to The Man sometimes) but if we were all so clever then, regardless of the ordure that floated to the top, we'd have discovered something marketable...wouldn't we? I mean, we really were that clever weren't we? Weren't we?
Or maybe life's not meant to be fair and we'll all have to follow some of our old colleagues to China or get used to working outside of big pharma...
...Pfizer Sandwich is an ex-site. It has ceased to be. It is no more. The Pfizer Blue is not pining for us to come back. It's DEAD.
(PS Anyone fancy being a lumberjack?)
----always rises to the top
----always rises to the top
"there are lots of
"there are lots of contributing factors to the demise of sandwich e.g. rolph, mackay, mackenzie, merson and their junior clones. regardless, its now done and as an ex-sandwich employee, i'm gutted for you all. if there is any justice you will all win the lottery while the corporate creeps in lower-middle management will get the sexually transmitted diseases they deserve. good luck guys."
I never, ever understood why Merson did not get fired long ago when I was at Sandwich. How can someone with only a handful of publications, and only ONE first authored paper in a crappy journal long ago, rise to the level of a CSO and SVP in a research organization??
London and Metropolitan
London and Metropolitan consortium is preferred bidder for Discovery Park.
Given that Pfizer wanted to
Given that Pfizer wanted to completely exit the site by the end of 2012 is there any sign of a new landlord for the so called "Discovery Park?"
Or will it just be like a huge leech sucking cash from the mothership as it sinks into the swamp?
"JUST HOW OPEN WAS OPEN?
"JUST HOW OPEN WAS OPEN? LOADS OF SPACE COS NO BUGGER THERE OR OPEN DISCUSSION ON WHAT THEY ARE GONNA DO WITH THE GREAT WHITE ELEPHANT?"
The discussion was on how to use the caps key on a keyboard. You should have attended.
It's a pity you didn't have anything better to discuss, like how you can avoid that PGCE you are staring down the barrell of
Now now girls
"JUST HOW OPEN WAS OPEN?
"JUST HOW OPEN WAS OPEN? LOADS OF SPACE COS NO BUGGER THERE OR OPEN DISCUSSION ON WHAT THEY ARE GONNA DO WITH THE GREAT WHITE ELEPHANT?"
The discussion was on how to use the caps key on a keyboard. You should have attended.
It's a pity you didn't have anything better to discuss, like how you can avoid that PGCE you are staring down the barrell of.
"JUST HOW OPEN WAS OPEN?
"JUST HOW OPEN WAS OPEN? LOADS OF SPACE COS NO BUGGER THERE OR OPEN DISCUSSION ON WHAT THEY ARE GONNA DO WITH THE GREAT WHITE ELEPHANT?"
The discussion was on how to use the caps key on a keyboard. You should have attended.
"OPEN DAY AT SANDWICH TODAY
"OPEN DAY AT SANDWICH TODAY WAS AMAZING"
I agree, emphasis on the word OPEN
JUST HOW OPEN WAS OPEN? LOADS OF SPACE COS NO BUGGER THERE OR OPEN DISCUSSION ON WHAT THEY ARE GONNA DO WITH THE GREAT WHITE ELEPHANT?
Quote: "the top brass will
Quote: "the top brass will all cling to the wreckage long enough to get their pensions and payoffs"
Never a truer word said. Top brass will protect one another and ensure that they all get filthy rich, then like the rats they are they will grab the only lifeboats and flee the sinking Pharma ship.........
"OPEN DAY AT SANDWICH TODAY
"OPEN DAY AT SANDWICH TODAY WAS AMAZING"
I agree, emphasis on the word OPEN
OPEN DAY AT SANDWICH TODAY
OPEN DAY AT SANDWICH TODAY WAS AMAZING
So successful it's been
So successful it's been completely shut down! Tool.
UK Pharma is Pfucked anyway, the top brass will all cling to the wreckage long enough to get their pensions and payoffs. The rest of you would do well, to change careers. Get out of chemistry and out of the lab, you'd be surprised what jobs you will be able to land competing as you will be now with the morons who often get good jobs as there is no-one else halfway decent to give them to.
This thread is so funny for
This thread is so funny for people who work hard and work smart.
The real reason Pfizer Sandwich has been so incredibly successful is that they don't hesitate to eliminate under-performing employees. The dead wood are gone the same day they are hired.
This site clearly attracts all those worthless losers that didn't make the cut.
Suck it, you losers! Bad apples!
You don't make the cut!
You suck. Stop your whining.
^ sounds like a Pfizer middle
^ sounds like a Pfizer middle manager - closement, bulls**t bingo buzzword!
Quote: "oh yeah and while I'm
Quote: "oh yeah and while I'm on - nice one Pfizer for rescuing all the UK top brass. The very morons who got the whole thing in the mess its in. may you all rot in hell. God bless america."
Nothing personal. You were all expendable. The top brass stuck together and protected each other because that way they all stay employed. Just corporate business as usual.......
so how long as neusentis
so how long as neusentis got?? Same shit, different name.
and a lot of the same ####### #######!
3 yrs.
oh yeah and while I'm on -
oh yeah and while I'm on - nice one Pfizer for rescuing all the UK top brass. The very morons who got the whole thing in the mess its in. may you all rot in hell. God bless america.
so how long as neusentis
so how long as neusentis got?? Same shit, different name.
couldnt agree more, you
couldnt agree more, you summarised perfectly and eloquently.
Bless u and the best this
Bless u and the best this world has to offer.
Today I left Pfizer with a
Today I left Pfizer with a very healthy redundancy package, 2 months off and a new job to go to. Thank you Pfizer for being so incredibly generous, this will be the best Christmas ever. Good luck to all Sandwich colleagues, current and recent. I wish you all a successful and prosperous 2012 and beyond.
Yo Cash it in and run. All
Yo
Cash it in and run. All the best Ruth.
Pfizer research was a good
Pfizer research was a good example of the old quote (Edison?):
"Success has many parents but failure is an orphan"
Plenty of people quick to claim the credit when it went well (or, more acurately, fiddle the numbers to make it look like it was going well) but when things failed it was always somebody else's fault.
Marviroc won't make any money
Marviroc won't make any money but its still a good drug. Shame about Champix and it's nasty side effects though, what was wrong with just quitting and being a man about it.
That's the way it works and
That's the way it works and no, I can't think of anyone left who might be able to find a new medicine. In the last 10 years Pfizer has spent $70BB+ on R&D and has 3 drugs to show for it - Selsentry, Champix and Sutent. And yet not 1 of their senior leaders has been Pfired. JLaM did at least fall on his (gold plated) sword over torceptrapib and Mac went to AZ but no VP or above has ever gotten Pfired for being unable to find a drug. Most VC's will look at the people they are investing in as much as the business plan/products - this does not seem to happen with pension fund managers/analysts and big pharma however. I sold all my remaining stock last week.
How come it is always 'the
How come it is always 'the dudes that are out of a job by now' who get what the problem is and how to fix it. Is there anyone left at Pfizer who you think can find drugs again???
Dude, you talk a lot of
Dude, you talk a lot of sense, but that means you are out of the job by now.
Not sure I agree with Mac
Not sure I agree with Mac introducing CAN goals - he has never had an idea in his life - he is a 'great people person' - apparently...No, it was JLaM who drove CAN goals as a way of measuring 'shots on goal' his great vision to increase productivity. This then drove all the investments in the 'Big 4', LSB, LSBII etc. We had lots of cash and were a salesmans dream - so many careers were driven skywards by spending money on a big ticket items and then producing 'data' to say it was all working wonderfully...before it all quietly disappeared 5-8 years later. To be fair, we did end up with a great compound producing machine (and HTS does play a part in that). The clinical molecules are of better quality and are more likely to test a mechanism in PoC across a wider variety of targets. However, this just served to highlight the flaw in the 'shots on goal' approach. Unless you can get to PoC for a total cost of $250-500K (instead of $25-50MM - the current cost) then you can never afford enough 'shots on goal' to hit the right target in the right patient - there are just too many bad places to shoot at. The initial plans assumed 1 in 8 to 1 in 40 attrition rate - even this is unaffordable and has never been achieved - CAN goals just drove a more risky/desparate/anything will do approach to target selection and a 1 in 100 output - and hence good scientists being put out of work and sites being shut. Although too late for SDW, the industry has to get better at target selection - I cannot see the costs coming down enough (outsourcing does not save any money, only makes it easier to decrease costs as you shrink as you can just stop spending rather than sacking/shutting sites - too messy/slow) to allow a failure rate much more than 1 in 2 or 3. Effectively, when you put chemists on a project you must have rock solid data that says this target will do something in a defined patient population. This is a completely different approach to now. Currently, it is just enough to argue for your target with extreme vigour, defending at all costs to protect your career than to produce solid data. The blurring of facts and assumptions, misrepresentation of data, aggresively fighting your corner - all traits of those who rose up over the years. And of course CAN goals - even when a CSO knows it is wrong to let the target go forward, you still need to produce something this year - a perfect storm. And you can't say it definitely won't work - right?! Of course, some targets you may still have problems finding molecules for and some targets may give better than placebo but not beat SoC but ouright clinical flatliners (FAAH anyone?) can not be tolerated or the industry will become a lot smaller than it is now. There are ways to achieve this but I fear many of the remaining few are so wedded to the 'shots on goal' approach that has defined their careers so far they don't have the ability to change - I hope I'm wrong.
not sure i agree with that.
not sure i agree with that. It was Mac the knife who introduced the CAN targets. Not SC nor Wylie. Further, Wylie wanted HTS to be one possible avenue for lead generation, not the be-all-and-end-all. Further, SC was a vocal critic of CHTS (remember that fiasco?) and constantly questioned the chemical viability and drugability of the compound file. Wylie also constantly questioned the validity of data from artificial, overexpressed systems sometimes with receptors forcibly coupled to 2nd messenger systems that they did not influence in vivo. I have lost count of the number of meetings where he piped up with "but what does it do in an animal". Something which he has now been proven correct on. Further, the great white elephant of the LSB came under the watch of MM and Rolph. There was nothing wrong with rapid growth and we had the income to support it from Istin, Diflucan and latterly Viagra. But investing it in the wrong people and wrong technologies was primarily the fault of the later bunch. Again, i'm not saying campbell and wylie were perfect - far from it; their reluctance to kill of duff projects early was legendary while SC in particular seemed to have blinkers on when it came to certain perfectly valid targets (e.g. "20 years of adenosine research has given us adenosine"). The fact remains that SC, MW etc had experience at bring things through from lab to market. Thos who cam after did not (and still don't).
Interesting historical
Interesting historical perspective but perhaps a bit rose tinted. It was much more fun when those characters were around and work was done with much less head count. However it was on the watch of most of those listed that the companies goals were ridiculous, head count was increased and companies were taken over. The job losses came much later.
Sadly, it's very doubtful
Sadly, it's very doubtful that Pfizer upper management learned anything from the last disastrous decade........
The remainder of Pfizer
The remainder of Pfizer Sandwich is now, as I am sure most are aware - largely Pharm Sci. Pilot Plant is about 15% by headcount I believe. The Pharm Sci groups have lost a lot of good people too, but the remainder are not all terrible (this is from someone who has left).
It would be good for the area if the site has some long term future, though it's hard to tell at the moment.
whether or not it is venomous
whether or not it is venomous is neither here nor there. Sandwich lost most of its real technical and scientific talent between 1999 and 2005. Voluntarily. And for all their faults, we lost some strong managers (Campbell, Wylie etc). Ask yourself why the best left when the company was at its strongest and most proftable. The inconvenient truth is that those who did not leave, remained at Sandwich simply for family commitments and mortgages. They were settled and they thought it would last forever. And the laughable HR policy (initiated by the cheesy tedman and continued by short-arsed dermot) meant we attracted and recruited the wrong sort of people for the wrong reasons. They simply wanted the pay check that came with Pfizer. They had no interest or understanding of drug discovery (Gale for christ sake). This is when the real damage was done because it coincided with Zoolander Rolph coming from animal health (still the most moronic decision in industry history) while marty mac capitalized on the chance to progress his career, not by being productive, but by slashing and burning and being a first class see-you-next-tuesday. Simultaneously, the cancerous HTS approach of speed-over-quality spread into other groups (data was never analysed correctly - the GI group routinely ignored Hill Slope data from binding and functional tests) which led to the wrong sort of people being promoted based on false measures of productivity. A perfect storm of stupidity. What happened to sandwich was entirely predictable - and indeed, was predicted by most of the individuals who left before 2005. The only shock was that it took so long. Those cut over that past 2 years or so never questioned company direction or their own data, allowed politics to suffocate their scientific integrity and hence were largely responsible for their own fate. I understand that they are angry, but I also know that they are too stupid to realize why.
Such venom! Truly sad.
Such venom! Truly sad.
Even now, those few hundred
Even now, those few hundred left at Pfizer Sandwich still think that they are, in some way, more extra-special or talented than the thousands who have been laid off. In truth, they are just the last few winners in a game of musical chairs that has been going on at that site for the past six years, with ever fewer seats for the bums there to occupy.
What now remains of the site is there only to support that most monstrous of Pfizer white elephants, the Pilot Plant. That itself survives only because no-one senior would ever admit to spending $300m on a pilot plant that was less efficient and productive than the converted railway shed it replaced. In the first half of the last decade, Pfizer politics dictated that all of Pfizer's other clinical API plants around the world were to be closed so that inconvenient comparisons could no longer be made - along with API for clincial trials.
Once small-scale API manufacturing is finally outsourced over the next 2-3 years (and for once, with genuine quality, cost and efficiency gains), what's left of Pfizer Sandwich will also close and the round of musical chairs there will finally cease. And good riddance.
Those who are still left and who think they are so much better than the "dead wood" that preceded them out of the gate will find life pretty hard. The majority of so-called "dead wood" has found fertile soil and taken root elewhere. Opportunities for the functionally useless still left at Sandwich, and who know nothing other than The Pfizer Way, are now pretty scarce indeed.
The lottery went along the
The lottery went along the lines of 'have you towed the line, yes or no?', 'did you ever suggest any improvement in your line of research?', '...ever ask why?....?';.....ever challenge anything?' Pretty sure you know the reason behind the snide comments, sleep well. And again twat.
The most experienced chemists
The most experienced chemists went early, remember those, the ones who gave unpaid apprenticeships to the new wonder kids ( retirement ). In the end everyone went regardless of self opinion, twat. Hope your enjoying the new world.
aaaaawwwwww! Did you get
aaaaawwwwww! Did you get sacked and think that you weren't dead-wood? Did you feel that you were super valuable to the organization? You're right, it probably wasn't personal, you were just unlucky in the "lottery". hahahaha
"Pfizer has been laying staff
"Pfizer has been laying staff off at Sandwich for the last 7 or 8 years. After each round of redundancies many of those who remained were pretty cavalier in their attitude to those who had lost their jobs ("Just getting rid of the dead-wood"). It never was a case of getting rid of the dead-wood. It was a lottery in which some very able people were sacrificed and those who were left didn't care as long as it wasn't them."
There an interesting/controversial article about the same issue here: http://www.pharmalot.com/2011/09/op-ed-pharma-layoffs-small-minded-survi...
Indeed. But there is a
Indeed. But there is a flipside. Pfizer has been laying staff off at Sandwich for the last 7 or 8 years. After each round of redundancies many of those who remained were pretty cavalier in their attitude to those who had lost their jobs ("Just getting rid of the dead-wood"). It never was a case of getting rid of the dead-wood. It was a lottery in which some very able people were sacrificed and those who were left didn't care as long as it wasn't them. The people who are leaving now are getting the same level of support as those who went before.
Let's not be so flippant
Let's not be so flippant people. Losing your job, the security of your home and potentially a future in the career you've spent decade building is not a 'no one gives a shit' moment. Come on down to Kent and let's discuss it if you feel your point is valid.
Don't be so bitter guys, it
Don't be so bitter guys, it looks like Pfizer is investing your wages into a killer business opportunity.
rearrange these words into a
rearrange these words into a well known phrase or saying
a
one
no
shit
gives
now this, i believe, is where you use the same approach to make a joke about about me. here, i'll help you out
dick
you
a
are
CVMED to exit cambridge.
CVMED to exit cambridge.
yawn yawn yawn
yawn yawn yawn
I can't think why she is so
I can't think why she is so upset, especially as it's not actually closing. It'll probably survive longer than Neusentis.
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