senior scientist

associate director

scientist

director

associate scientist

AstraZeneca

Rapid growth and acquisition of a new company changed the dynamics of the Pulmonary division leaving many district team members uncertain and the future of their team.  Many managers committed themselves to future opportunities and spent little time focused on the development of teams already established.  There was little to no concrete information shared by management about the future of many existing teams therefore,  seasoned employees focused on finding new positions elsewhere leaving 30% of the existing sales team displaced to be absorbed by other districts. The team members that were left had uncertain roles for the future with the very real possibility that current positions would be dissolved or replaced with no promotional or lateral opportunities available. The typical work days are spent calling on high target HCP's working to maintain market share and reverse automatic product switches due to loss of formulary status of major local and state insurance providers. Lunches are held several times a week where I capitalize on the opportunity to promote the product benefits for the patient. As an experienced and effective representative, I was able to spin the negative and spend less time on damage control.
   Management was not forthcoming or reassuring about upcoming changes which left remaining co-workers gossiping and scrambling for positions that where not yet posted.  About 50% of employees share this less optimistic view of the companies culture  and direction.  The other 50% that have had some history with the company share views of a brighter and more stable times when the company was not in a state of flux defending against hostile takeovers and managing the growing pains of acquisition to stay in a solvent position of power. This time in the history of the company will only be remembered as a bump in the road.  This will quickly pass and the company will shine as bright as it always has until the next shuffle of power in the top management.  I hope that they learn from history and not repeat the cracks in the core that could shake the foundation.

CEO has done well to turn around lackluster pipeline and there are a lot of products that have promise and will really benefit patients.  The pipeline is one you can be proud of as an employee.  Commercialization efforts have not been meeting expectations (confusion over market share vs revenue/profit goals driving business priorities) and the commercial teams are under a lot of high stress to achieve unrealistic expectations amidst constant cutting back of resources.
The company has lots of really talented people putting in significant effort to achieve results, however recognition is often misplaced and does not recognize efforts.  Significant turnover in key leadership positions over the past few years has been concerning.  Not vetting high level leaders who manage up well, but really aren't the best candidates for the job, has allowed ego building empires where favoritism outweighs talent.   
Additional significant recent changes to benefits have reduced morale. Company wants to operate more as a biotech, but (other than specialty or biotech sales roles) does not compensate like one.  If you are fortunate to be in the specialty divisions where sales salaries are higher, you are compensated very well.  In non-specialty and non-sales roles, compensation increases have stagnated and are lower than competitors.  Bonus payouts have mostly been very good over the past ten years, with a few exceptions.  
Constant headcount reductions to reduce SG&A expenses have hit headquarter support positions hard, with sales positions relatively untouched.  Expectations to "do more with less" are persistent, but everything remains a priority as senior leaders don't prioritize either at all or effectively.  Result is continuous increases in workload for remaining employees at HQ.   Expectations to leverage global resources for efficiency have taken time to get used to and in some cases haven't worked well where non-US support teams don't have the business understanding needed to address issues effectively.

Let's start by stating there are mostly good leaders in management positions and few really rotten apples. There are many with long tenure at the company who are honest and supportive employees. If you end up in a field sales position, or sales in general, chances are you will mostly have a great team. However, it only takes one manager to dismantle and entire team, like mine, and be the driving force behind several people leaving. In this case the company, I learned, will take a blind eye to a compiling list of anonymously reported concerns all pointed towards one individual. Sad, it creates a toxic environment, and leaves you unsupported. Overall, my experience, minus one manager validated by many others now considering retirement early, would overall rate as a good experience if you can find a good manager.

The companies performance is peculiar. I noticed that AstraZeneca has a tendency to underperform as a company. This is strikingly odd as it appears there are many intelligent people driving clinical research and results. The company consistently shows up late with products and clinical data, sometimes second place at best. Clinical trials tend to be "go big or go home" like and are more often than not underwhelming in data and/or delivery speed. This makes promotion of products difficult where Pfizer and Eli Lilly seem to be the "go getter's" and AstraZeneca is left fighting for second place. This is evidenced in AstraZeneca's efforts to procure and make COVID vaccines available, only to find slow adoption and approval for use, struggling with potential blood clot side effects with J&J, while yet again Pfizer is beating everyone to the punch. I have experienced this in other therapeutic areas as well. If you want to be the best of the best with the company that makes this possible for you, go work for Amgen, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Genentech. If you want to collect a paycheck and be comfortable at a Pharmaceutical Rep while attempting to be great, work for AstraZeneca.

upper leadership very prone to only hearing or knowing about your personal performance from direct line manager. Which means you either have a great relationship or you do not. This can be positive or highly detrimental to your career within the company and will determine success or failure. Lots of corporate change in terms of added duties and metrics which require adapting, putting down projects to prioritize activities as leadership sees fit. 

Large company does not have a set way for those in certain roles to grow within. Big discrepancy of pay between those performing similar job functions.

Poor leadership, most afraid to speak up or, say what they mean, huge layoff of medical affairs 2016,  many only care about their own image or success, few willing to mentor others unless seen as a positive for image within role, biased leadership styles among direct line manager in medical affairs, lots of preferentialism, specific line managers need more leadership, be more inspiring and less authoritarian, policy very open to interpretation by upper managers and can be misleading and interpreted either way causing issues within compliance that could have been avoided many times. Policy easily manipulated to reflect negatively but not clear in many aspects. Can be used against anyone.

I began the day in my home office planning which physicians I would see. I pre-planned what my call objectives would be for each account/office. My partner and I strategized which physicians we would call on (2 week routing schedule) as well as prioritized accounts that had the most Statin Market Share and our plan of action to increase our market share in the class. Additionally, we zeroed in on who our highest Crestor (product drug labeled a statin), writers/physicians. Maintaining and gaining market share was the most challenging part of the job. Increasing market share from those physicians writing our competitor drugs i.e. Lipitor loyalist, was probably the hardest part of our job. At the same time, convincing those Lipitor loyalist or other statin loyalist was the most gratifying part of our job. We took great pride in studying the trends where we could shift market share to Crestor and continue to grow Crestor with our loyalist. I was very anxious to see where we ranked amongst our own district/regional peers. Often times, there would be busy work at night to complete, evaluate & input physician writing habits in an Excel spreadsheet, complete expense reports, etc.
The role of Pharm. Sales Specialist allowed you the autonomy to manage your territory. However, I liked it when my District Sales Manager worked with me because she knew how to bring out the best in me. It was a bonus and a value added resource to have her work with me.

A typical day of work consists of: figuring out which accounts would be best to contact that day and at what time, tailoring my conversations to HCPs depending on the individual account's current situation (showing disinterest in the product, to regularly prescribing the product and using it as their first line of treatment), and updating/continuing my product knowledge. I have learned various aspects of the pharmaceutical industry, including but not limited to: managed care, prescribing information, clinical studies, knowing the product's competition, and handling/overcoming push-back from HCPs. My district manager provides me with great constructive criticism on a bi-weekly schedule to assist in my growth as a pharmaceutical sales representative. My co-workers are well-educated young professionals trying to gain as much experience as possible in this position. The hardest part of my current job is trying to open the minds of some physicians who are and have been satisfied with their current treatment practice for some time now and are, therefore, reluctant to hear information regarding a newer-to-the-market treatment. The most enjoyable part of the job is knowing that my regular contact with viable accounts is making a difference in the lives of patients suffering from a certain condition, whether I am introducing this condition to the HCPs for the first time or speaking with HCPs already well aware of this condition and its need for a treatment.

When I joined this company years ago, I was estatic. What a great reputation it had, I respected the AZ Reps I saw in the field. Wow, times have changed. The company's mid and senior management have made some fundamentally flawed decisions.

And yes indeed! They claim they have the highest level of intregity and strong ethics. Not so true. They just have excellent attorneys. For example, they do not follow many of the policies other big pharma companies must adhere to and let things go unreported.

Instead of spending millions of dollars on TV ads, they should value and compensate their employees accordingly -- instead of forcing themselves to layoff thousands of employees (many of which were excellent reps, circle of Excellence winners, top notch performers). Then they go and hire contract sales reps and train them in a week (and don't tell the reps and dsm's about this until they are already working in territory). Simple horrific!

Also, in certain territories management has made bad teaming decisions, creating a not so pleasant co-worker environment.

Bad decision if you decide to work for AZ. Again pipeline is dry and Brilinta? do some research. Reps are not as talented they once were. HIring several layers of contract sales forces. Do yourself a favor, pass on this one.

And glad I just got an offer from another company!!

AstraZeneca has provided me with fundamental knowledge and development that has allowed me to further my career and discover the true passion I have for this line of work. Even through difficult periods such as the divesting of my site's parenteral manufacturing facility, they have provided ample support and flexibility.

Due to a business decision related to the end of my site's main product market exclusivity, my company has decided to close my facility and nonetheless, AstraZeneca has gone above and beyond my expectations and not only hired an outside career management company to work with all employees, they have also opened their doors and welcomed prospective employers from companies in the surrounding areas to come in and interview their current employees whom will be hitting the job market once the facility closes its doors.

As a result, the staff has responded with an unrivaled commitment customer service and has continued to respond successfully to market volatility without delays to the patient in getting the medicines that are so important to their quality of life.

I cannot express my gratitude for the firs 10 years of my career and the wonderful experiences AstraZeneca has offered me during this time. I hope I have a fraction of this commitment from my future employer.

The more I work here (worked up, having 3 jobs in 5 years in the company), the more I feel like I sold my soul just to get under appreciated and under paid. Senior leadership makes horrid decisions that shouldn't be their's to make. They hire subject matter experts, then don't like when what they say sounds expensive, so they go the cheap route, going over QA, engineers, and others expertise. Then when it blows up in their face and the FDA is knocking on the door calling us out, they don't hold themselves accountable. Just super sketchy moves on Leadership's part. And when a bunch of salaried employees do crazy overtime to fix issues that are only there because of Leadership decisions, there is absolutely NO recognition, bonuses aren't effected, because that would mean acknowledging something was wrong in the first place. Leadership will NEVER acknowledge that something is wrong, they'll just have "icecream socials" and try to brainwash people into thinking this is a "great place to work" with a handful of free food every month or so. Sorry, brainwashing with food doesn't work for me when I never see my family and dont even get compensated for it (or even thanked).

I enjoyed working at AstraZeneca. I created weekly/monthly/quarterly upper level management KPI reports, scorecards and ad-hoc reports. Supported Service Now Reporting and created jobs/reports for user(s) and areas. Maintained the OLA/SLA within Service Now for the various vendor agreements. Data Analytics for IT related date for Incidents, problem and other types of data. Multi Tasking was part of daily routine which I enjoy doing. People were hard working, helped each other and I enjoyed working on Global projects/teams. I regularly dialed into meetings in the UK and Sweden regardless of the time zone differences and enjoyed being part of the culture. I have SAP MM/Ariba Buyer experience. Was on SAP projects and supported various plants for direct material purchasing as well as indirect purchasing. Config experience on SAP/Ariba. Previous roles within AstraZeneca included Data Warehouse US as well as Global projects either as part of a team or as project lead. Have Business Analysis experience as was the Business Analyst supporting the Procurement department in coding (ABAP back when they had SAP R/2) and COBOL previously. I started out supporting the MRP plant systems at the various sites. I have always been a high achiever, team player and adapt to change quickly.

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