GLAXO: Glasnost* or "Glax_not"...that's the question.

GlaxoSmithKline's Spin Doctoring Doesn't Cure Corruption Problems 


Andrew Witty, GlaxoSmithKline GSK CEO, has been a busy man over the past couple years, taking every opportunity to convince the public that the company has reformed its culture and marketing practices. 

But despite the full-on PR campaign, claims continue to surface about Glaxo using bribes to induce doctors to prescribe Glaxo drugs. Allegations of Glaxo’s bribery in China have hung over the company for nearly a year, and just recently similar concerns have been raised publicly about the company’s marketing practices in Poland, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon – in all, a list that is becoming as long as an Amazing Race itinerary.

Ver :

GLAXO "soborna" de nuevo...ahora Polonia, Jordania, Líbano...

 It has been less than two years since Glaxo paid the US government a record-setting $3 billion to settle a range of fraud and bribery allegations, including allegations that it paid kickbacks to doctors to prescribe Glaxo drugs and that it marketed many of its drugs for unapproved uses, making unsubstantiated claims about results. (A number of those allegations were raised by whistleblowers my firm represented.)

If the latest allegations are true, Andrew Witty will need to work overtime to dispel the conclusions that Glaxo simply “off-shored” illegal sales tactics first developed in the United States and that the pharma giant continues to foster a culture where bribery and kickbacks are considered standard sales practices. 

Andrew Witty en "su laberinto"

CEO Witty promised in 2012 that GSK would make “displaying integrity in everything we do” a priority. However, the temptation of rapidly growing markets in Asia, the Middle East and Europe may have proven too difficult to resist. After all, it’s harder to convert “integrity” into rising share prices than it is to boost profits through questionable business practices. 

 The flood of bribery allegations is a test even for Glaxo’s professional spin doctors who, rather ironically, try to distract the public from bad news on the ethical front by announcing the company’s latest steps to reinvent itself as an ethical business venture. 

For example, prior to its November 2011 announcement that the company would pay $3 billion to resolve the U.S. liabilities, Glaxo moved to pre-empt the bad news by announcing it was changing its US sales representatives’ compensation structure so that they would no longer be rewarded based on the volume and value of prescriptions sold. Such incentive-based compensation is considered to encourage illegal practices that drive sales. 

Ver:
GSK: La mayor de todas las...MULTAS / GSK in biggest-ever $3b marketing fraud settlement.

But as the latest alleged bribery revelations suggest, limiting those changes to the US sales force left the rest of the world – including Glaxo’s most rapidly growing markets – open to questionable practices encouraged by incentive compensation structures that Glaxo failed to change outside the US. 

In 2013, dogged by numerous media stories that it was bribing doctors in China to prescribe its drugs, Glaxo tried to blunt the fallout by belatedly announcing that all of its sales representatives worldwide would be compensated under the same terms as its US sales force, replacing financial incentives based on sales with ones based on the quality of service sales reps provide doctors and other healthcare providers.

Ver:
GLAXO: "Castigo chino" para Witty $410,000

Then in March, a top Glaxo official said in a media interview that Glaxo would hire doctors in-house to market its drugs, rather than pay physicians to speak to other doctors about its products. Within just a few weeks, like clockwork, allegations of GSK bribing physicians in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Poland surfaced. 

One gets the feeling that Glaxo’s compliance efforts are geared more to pre-empting bad news than they are to making meaningful and effective changes to its business culture. Glaxo’s piecemeal approach to compliance holds back on clearly needed wholesale changes while the executive suite waits for the next investigation of unethical conduct to crop up. 

With Glaxo’s recent history, it is hard to keep a straight face when reading the company’s statement responding to the latest bribery allegations involving Jordan and Lebanon. Glaxo declares: “We are confident in our processes and controls and that we do not have a systemic issue with unethical behavior in GSK.” 

If Glaxo truly doesn’t recognize that bribery allegations in multiple countries around the globe add up to a “systemic issue,” then the company has even bigger management problems than it seems. In that case, GSK and Andrew Witty should be prescribed a full dose of reality – with unlimited refills.(Ver)

(*) Glasnost: (Russian: гла́сность, IPA: [ˈɡlasnəsʲtʲ] ( listen), lit. "publicity") was a policy that called for increased openness and transparency...

Big Pharma’s Latest Breakthrough: Choosing Its First Female Glaxo CEO Emma Walmsley

Emma Walmsley to be the only woman leading a top-25 drugmaker.

GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s new chief executive looks a lot like other bosses at large pharmaceutical companies: a graduate of Oxford, white, with worldwide experience managing thousands of employees. There is, though, one big difference: She’s not a man. 

Emma Walmsley will lead the British drugmaker starting in March, breaking the gender barrier at the world’s top 25 drugmakers and highlighting the dearth of female leadership among Europe’s biggest companies. 

"I´ve never primarily defined myself by my gender" Walmsley said in a video posted on Glaxo’s website Tuesday after announcing her appointment. “I’ve been lucky enough to always work for companies or in countries where being female hasn’t limited or restricted me.” Walmsley, a 47-year-old mother of four, made what she described as “a bungee jump” to Glaxo from cosmetics giant L’Oreal SA in 2010 following a meeting with CEO Andrew Witty, who will retire in March.

Ver:

GLAXO tambien "pesca" afuera...

Andrew Witty

After Witty asked her to join Glaxo, “I spent a week persuading myself I would be insane to do it,” she wrote in a posting on Lean In, a website aimed at supporting women in business founded by Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. But Walmsley quickly embraced the challenge: “People regret far more what they don’t do rather than what they do.” (...)

Ver:

GSK: Sir Andrew Witty prepara las maletas...

Big pharma hasn’t been a trailblazer in promoting women. It’s behind the technology and consumer sectors though it’s better than -- or at least no worse than -- the finance and energy industries. Women captured less than 3 percent of new CEO positions globally last year, the worst showing since 2011, according to a PwC study of 2,500 global public companies. 

“We’re not doing a good enough job in developing female talent at the highest level,” outgoing Novo Nordisk A/S CEO Lars Rebien Soerensen, who has no women reporting to him, said in an interview in May. “We’re not worse or better than any other. It’s a cultural-social issue that we have in Europe.” 

Walmsley is one of two women on Glaxo’s top executive team, according to the company’s website. She will join the board on Jan. 1 and take the helm of the London-based company on March 31, Glaxo said in a statement on Tuesday. At L’Oreal, she held positions in the U.S. and Europe, and had been in China for three years when she had her 2010 meeting with Witty. 

 “I love to see courageous leaders with strong points of view,” Walmsley said in the video. “We all have a responsibility to be role models, to inspire our daughters to stay ambitious.” (Más)

Ver también:
 Emma Walmsley, nueva consejera delegada de GlaxoSmithKline 

GSK: Sir Andrew Witty prepara las maletas...

The chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, Sir Andrew Witty, is stepping down in March 2017 after nearly a decade at the helm of Britain's biggest pharmaceuticals company.


Todo sobre Andrew Witty en PHARMACOSERÍAS

 The FTSE 100 drugs giant said that the board would now conduct a formal search for a successor and would consider internal and external candidates for the role. 

The announcement confirms recent speculation that Sir Andrew's 32-years of service at Glaxo is coming to an end, following a period of turbulent trading which has led many investors to call for a break-up of the company and new leadership. 

 Philip Hampton, Glaxo's new chairman, said the focus would now be on finding a successor. Likely internal candidates could include Glaxo's global pharmaceuticals head Abbas Hussain, leader of the consumer division, Emma Walmsley and manufacturing head Roger Connor, as well as finance chief Simon Dingemans, a former Goldman Sachs banker. 

Externally, GSK might try to poach a senior figure from a rival drugmaker, such as Novartis' respected pharma head David Epstein. It might even look beyond the drugs sector to an executive with broader experience in consumer products. 

Mr Hampton said: "We will thank Andrew more formally for his tremendous dedication and contribution next year." 

 Sir Andrew said he would be leaving Glaxo in a strong position and that the company was on track to return to core earnings growth - an internal measure of performance - this year. 

"I believe this will be the right time for a new leader to take over. In making this decision it has been important to me that the board has the time to conduct a full and proper process," he said.
(Más)

Andrew Witty (CEO GSK) nuevo presidente de la EFPIA

GlaxoSmithKline chief executive Andrew Witty has been appointed president of EFPIA.

He previously served as vice-president of the European industry association for two years and takes over the role of president from Bayer Healthcare's chief executive Arthur Higgins,

Witty said: “I am pleased to have the opportunity to represent our industry in Europe at this challenging time, when the policy considerations of healthcare have probably never been more pertinent.

“Europe needs a 21st century approach to healthcare; one that provides access to optimal and equitable quality of care in a manner that is sustainable. We need policies that make this a reality, as well as policies that recognize innovation, equipping us to develop new medicines and therapies that citizens seek.”

Witty became chief executive GlaxoSmithKline in May 2008, having previously been GSK’s president of pharmaceuticals Europe, and has been with the company for 25 years.

Ver...

GlaxoSK y Pfizer crean juntos una nueva compañía con "focus" en HIV(cont)...Es sólo esto? o... "gato encerrado"?

Ver...

La pasada semana fué la noticia:

GlaxoSK y Pfizer crean juntos una nueva compañía con "focus" en HIV

Andrew Witty's message | Jeff Kindler's message

Las especulaciones las inicia Fierce Pharma adelantando dudas sobre entretelones de esta "extraña (para la industria) operación:

We thought the Pfizer-GlaxoSmithKline HIV partnership was pretty exciting at face value, but Dow Jones has a tantalizing idea: That the combo is just a preliminary step toward a full-on spinoff-slash-sale. Evidence?


En el artículo mencionado Naomi Nikolajsen y Robert Armstrong (DOW JONES NEWSWIRES), después de extenderse en el poco "racional" de esta operación:

"The joint venture will not create a scale advantage relative to the big players (Gilead/Bristol) in the space."

concluyen:

"All this indicates that creating the JV is not much of a strategy for long-term competitiveness in the HIV space. But it may do something else: create an entity that can be neatly sold to another player or spun off as an independent company. The combination of the two companies' assets, along with any savings realized, would fetch a price greater than the two franchises sold individually."

Un día después Jeanne Whalen and Dana Cimilluca, tambien en TWSJ, se extienden en detalles esclarecedores:

1) Una compañia, Glaxo (UK), con un portafolio en HIV obsoleto, ventas stagnadas y "pipeline" esteril...

"Glaxo, of Brentford, England, is one of the biggest sellers of HIV drugs, but its products are relatively old and not growing as much as the company would like. Glaxo also has relatively few new drugs in development for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS."

2) Otra compañía, Pfizer (USA), con varios productos en desarrollo y pocos en el mercado, reducida fuerza de ventas y necesitada de asociarse en busca de sinergias que permitan...

"New York-based Pfizer has several HIV drugs in development but few on the market, and has a smaller sales force than Glaxo's. The companies hope that by pooling resources, they can cut costs and create a broader business with better potential for long-term growth."

3) Dos "newcomers":

"Mr. Witty took over as CEO (Glaxo) last year(2008). Jeffrey Kindler became CEO of Pfizer in 2006."

4) Uno de ellos, Mr Witty (Glaxo)...con ideas:

"I think you see an industry facing the reality of the challenges that exist," Glaxo Chief Executive Andrew Witty said during a conference call. "You also see to some degree a new generation of management prepared to come forward with new solutions."

5) y con ganas de "romper paradigmas..."

"Examples of cooperation among drug giants are unusual -- Pfizer and Glaxo are the world's top two drug companies by sales, respectively -- since big pharmaceutical companies compete to sell products, attract top talent and bring the best new drugs to market."

6) y abrir paso a nuevas "oportunidades"

"The venture also will allow the companies to combine some products into new combination pills, which are widely used in HIV treatment."

A nosotros, solo nos queda...el beneficio de la duda...