Abstract

The case study is about the sales force strategy of Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a San Diego, California-based biopharma-ceutical company, that had developed and marketed two first-in-class drugs for diabetes - Symlin and Byetta - in the US. The company initially organized its sales force into a primary care sales force focused on primary care physicians, and a comparatively smaller specialty sales force focused on endocrinologists and other physicians with predominant diabetes practices. One of the leading pharmaceutical companies, Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly), too co-promoted Byetta in the US, and had its own sales force to promote Byetta. In May 2009, Amylin merged the primary care and specialty sales force of the company into a single organization. The company hoped that the new sales force strategy with a leaner sales force would help reduce costs and also increase the effectiveness of its sales force effort. This decision came at a time when Amylin’s board members were under considerable pressure to step down following the indifferent performance of the company. The company had come under severe criticism from activist investors who wanted their own nominees to be incorporated on Amylin’s board. Amylin’s sales force strategy was flayed as critics felt that it was flawed and that it was as a result of this that the company had not been able to realize the true potential of its first-in-class drugs, particularly Byetta.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Understand the issues and challenges in managing an in-house sales force
• Understand issues and challenges related to different sales force organizations, sales force optimization, and sales force productivity. Analyze the sales force strategy adopted by Amylin
• Discuss and debate whether the initial sales force strategy adopted by Amylin was flawed as claimed by its detractors. Analyze the new sales force strategy and discuss whether the new strategy would help Amylin tap the potential of its products. Explore

Keywords

Sales force strategy, Sales organization, Primary care sales force, specialty sales force, Sales force optimization, Sales force effectiveness, Sales force productivity, Commercialization, Co-promotion, Operational costs, SGA expenses, Cash flow, diabetes drug market, biopharmaceutical, Amylin, Byetta, Eli Lilly