Upon hearing Lin Sanqi's concerns about sales, Professor Witt and Professor Anthony both laughed out loud, appearing very confident.
Professor Anthony patted Lin Sanqi on the shoulder and explained:
"Lin, you're Chinese, so you might not be very familiar with the medical systems in Europe and the United States. Whether a drug can enter clinical trials, become a mainstream drug, or even become a top-selling drug often doesn't depend on its efficacy."
Lin Sanqi blinked and thought, I might have guessed it. It depends on whether the female drug representative is willing to take the risk or not?
Several people walked around the workshop and chatted about the heavens:
"Firstly, our Epyridamole tablets are a highly effective drug for pulmonary tuberculosis, with a 6-month cure rate of an astonishing 94%, which is currently unmatched by any other drug in the world. This is our first advantage.
Secondly, why did we set up a pharmaceutical sales company? Because our sales staff need to connect with hospitals, departments, and even every clinician. This connection is actually..."
Professor Witte made an internationally recognized gesture, rubbing his index finger and thumb together.
Lin Sanqi understood immediately and said: "money"
“Yes, money.
I have learned about your Chinese medical system. You adopt a planned system.
The hospital will submit a quantity list to the higher-level health department to determine how much medicine it will need for the next year. The health department will then compile the data and provide feedback to the pharmaceutical factory, which will then produce the medicine according to the plan.
This is a clean and innocent process, with no grey areas involved. Doctors do not come face to face with pharmaceutical companies.
Pharmaceutical companies and hospitals are not aiming to make profits. Pharmaceutical companies produce pure drugs, and doctors are not disturbed and can serve patients wholeheartedly.
But we in Europe and the United States are different.
For example, when you wholesale your anti-tuberculosis drug to us, the price per course of treatment is $1,000. But when we sell it to you, the price is $10,000 per course of treatment.”
Lin Sanqi paused and cursed in his heart:
You bastards, you sell it for 1,000 and you sell it for 10,000? Have your consciences been eaten by dogs?
But Lin Sanqi had an agreement with the two professors that he could not interfere with how much the other party sold it for, so he could only sulk in secret.
Professor Witte was still introducing himself:
"Of the $10,000 in drug payments, $9,000 doesn't necessarily constitute our gross profit. We also need to share a lot of the pie.
First, we must take out at least 10% of our profits to work with various administrative departments. Any drug that wants to enter the market needs their approval, especially for foreign drugs, which have stricter approval procedures.
Drug administration departments like the FDA in the United States, the MHRA in the United States, the ANSM in France, etc., all need to be bribed and have connections before they will issue you a pass.
In addition, whether a drug can be included in the medical insurance catalog is also very important. We have to lobby the officials of the medical insurance agency, which costs a lot of money and we can't save any money."
Lin Sanqi was a little surprised:
"Professor, I've heard that officials in European and American countries are honest and impartial. Why do you speak so badly of them?"
Professor Witte and Professor Anthony both laughed:
"Hahaha, Lin, you're too naive. Everyone is greedy. Just like when you buy beef, even if you don't embezzle it, after it passes through several hands, aren't your hands covered in grease?
Besides, foreign capital controls everything, including television, newspapers, radio and other media. Capital and power are twins. Do you think they will publicize that their people are greedy? No kidding.
Scandals only occur during election season, when candidates start throwing mud at each other to attract votes or to thwart a particular candidate. Otherwise, officials are generally known for their integrity.”
Lin Sanqi spitted inwardly. All crows are black, and the moon in foreign countries may not be that round.
At this time, Professor Witte continued to settle accounts with Lin Sanqi.
He had to make his words clear, otherwise the wholesale price would be one thousand and the retail price would be ten thousand, and Lin Sanqi wouldn't know how much more money they made, and he would definitely feel unbalanced over time.
At that time, they will either raise prices, look for other partners, or simply run out of stock. Neither of these options is what the two professors want to see.
Therefore, Chinese partners must be appeased.
"Secondly, we will use 10% of our profits for long-term funding of national medical associations such as the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the European Pulmonary Society.
I pay for these medical associations to work for me and be controlled by me. The various "Expert Consensus" and "Clinical Guidelines" they publish can be written to my specifications. This is a community of interests.
For example, let's take the simplest example. The standard fasting blood sugar for diabetes used to be 11 points, but if we control medicine and lower that standard to 8 points, will that lead to more people being diagnosed with diabetes and more drug sales?
If we were to go even further and revise the diabetes diagnostic criteria to a 6-point fasting score, wouldn't that add another significant number of diabetics to the mix? Would that also boost sales of diabetes medications?
Without funding from pharmaceutical companies, medical organizations around the world would not be able to survive, and those committee members would not be able to hold meetings all over the world, travel everywhere, receive red envelopes everywhere, give speeches and do research to make a lot of money.
Similarly, without the medical association's "guidelines" and "consensus," without authoritative diagnostic standards and unified drug recommendations, drugs still cannot be sold. How can pharmaceutical companies make money then?
Therefore, medical associations and pharmaceutical companies complement each other and share the same interests. Capital is very necessary to support medical associations.”
In another time and space, Lin Sanqi was just a master's student. He didn't even have the qualifications to follow his tutor and enjoy the benefits. Naturally, he didn't understand the unspoken rules in the hospital.
In addition, neither Lingnantang Chinese Medicine Clinic nor Southern Pharmaceutical Factory has established a public transportation department, and naturally they have not funded relevant medical associations.
Thinking of this, Lin Sanqi had an inspiration. He felt that in another time and space, he would also bribe the "Chinese Medical Association" and spend money to make them recommend Lingnan Hall every day.
Professor Witte saw Lin Sanqi lost in thought and thought the Chinese didn't understand the market, so he broke it down and explained it to his collaborator:
"In addition, I also need to give at least 10% commission to the hospital administration.
That is, from the dean to the deputy dean in charge, to the head of the hospital procurement department, the head of the pharmacy, and so on.
We need to give a share of the profits to every hospital department that has anything to do with drugs and every hospital administrator with signing authority so that they won't cause us trouble.
Hospital administrators control the purchasing power of the hospital. Which drugs to use and which not to use, and how much of a drug to purchase, are not decided by doctors, but by the administrators.
Therefore, this part of money cannot be saved. Otherwise, no matter how effective your medicine is, if people don’t take it, it will be useless even if you shout at the top of your lungs.
After all, most of the good hospitals in our country are private hospitals, and they are all managed by professional managers.”
Lin Sanqi can understand this. Foreign professional managers are greedy, and domestic ones, ahem, are not much better.
Therefore, the country once vigorously combated corruption in hospitals for a period of time, but unfortunately the effect was not good. After all, if Zhang San was removed, Li Si who came up would not be a good person either.
Good people want to be the dean? Don't dream, good people are destined to be hardworking and work like oxen.
As the saying goes, all crows are black, the same at home and abroad.
Professor Witte had said too much, so Professor Anthony continued to explain:
"Finally, we also have to give the doctors who write the prescriptions and the pharmaceutical representatives a combined 10% commission. This is the doctor's personal service fee. The more they prescribe, the more they get; the less they prescribe, the less they get; and if they don't prescribe, they get nothing.
For example, if a doctor can earn $100 personally for prescribing a box of medicine, then the doctor will have enough motivation to prescribe our medicine without any need to be urged.
The main responsibility of our drug commercial representatives is to count the doctor's personal usage and pay the doctor on time every month. That's it.
However, it is not easy to be a pharmaceutical representative. The public relations expenses they need to spend are very high, and this part also needs to be reimbursed by the company.
For example, in order to get doctors to use more drugs, drug representatives have to treat them to meals, invite them to travel and spend money, and even the doctors' personal paper publications and housework have to be handled by the drug representatives.
There are also some female drug agents who pay even more, ahem, but that's a private matter and we don't care.
Therefore, when we recruit pharmaceutical representatives, we usually choose male pharmaceutical representatives who are good at speaking, have high emotional intelligence and are good at communicating. For female pharmaceutical representatives, we only need two conditions: one is to be beautiful, and the second is to be willing to take risks.
In order for pharmaceutical representatives to survive, their bonuses are linked to sales.
Doctors and drug representatives are integrated, and this portion accounts for about 10% of the profits. (End of this chapter)
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