Will industry follow Pfizer lead on drug rep cuts?

Expiring medication patents and a changing physician climate may shape how many drug reps doctors see.

By Kevin B. O'Reilly, AMNews staff. Dec. 25, 2006.

Pfizer Inc.'s announcement last month that it will cut 20% of its 11,000-member U.S. sales force has left physicians and pharmaceutical sector experts wondering if the move portends an industrywide troop reduction in the armies of drug reps who descend on doctors' offices daily.

Pfizer's cuts reportedly could save the country's No. 1 drugmaker about $400 million annually. The announcement came just days before the company said it was ending phase III study of a cardiac drug. Many expected the drug to soften the financial blow due when Pfizer's Lipitor (atorvastatin) said in announcing the cuts.

Wyeth was the first to opt for unilateral disarmament in the drug rep arms race last year when it slashed its primary care sales force by 15% to about 2,400 full- and part-time employees. Wyeth spokesman Douglas Petkus said cuts have not hurt sales and that doctors appreciate the change.

"The dynamic of the marketplace has changed," he said. "Physicians in offices are very busy and don't have time to see a large number of reps."

None of the leading drugmakers contacted for this story said they plan to follow Pfizer's lead. Swiss firm Novartis International AG, in fact, plans to add 1,000 drug reps to its sales force in anticipation of a handful of new drug approvals. Hussain Mooraj, a drug industry consultant at AMR Research in Boston, said moves like Pfizer's and Wyeth's are primarily driven by sales, patent expirations and the state of a company's pipeline. Over the next two years, Sanofi-Aventis' Ambien (zolpidem) and Merck & Co.'s Fosamax (alendronate) go off patent and could send more drug reps to the unemployment office, Mooraj said.