Whistleblowers are the new trial lawyers.
From The Health Care Blog:
Here’s another piece of evidence to support my argument that whistleblowing represents the most promising career path for a young person starting out in the biomedical industry. Biotechs such as Genentech, Amgen and the other large ones are an especially fertile venue. The avaricious ambitions of senior executives and their accompanying desire to mimic the Big Pharma operations tend to alienate both the scientists and the commercial people who were originally attracted to the biotech side of the drug discovery business. These increasingly disgruntled coworkers can provide excellent leads into illegal practices that the enterprising whistleblower can use to his/her advantage.
The current Genentech whistleblower held the job of medical science liaison or MSL. The medical science liaison position (also called health science associate, clinical liaison and other terms by various companies) remains especially advantageous for launching a whistleblowing career. The MSLs and their otherwise designated counterparts are hybrids who combine a sales function with that of clinical trials missionaries. Their putative function consists of discussing clinical trials with curious and knowledgeable practitioners. This gives them considerably more leeway in their interaction with physicians than that given to sales reps who are restricted to discussing information appearing on the current labels of existing products. In an effort to foster the appearance that MSLs serve a scientific and educational function, their departments report up to the medical affairs operations of the respective companies, rather than to sales. As part of the same illusory effort MSLs are relieved of responsibilities for delivering samples. Nor are they evaluated by measurements used to calculate bonuses for sales reps, such as market shares or sales volumes within their assigned territories. As a result the MSL people are held in high contempt by the great majority of their sales rep colleagues.
Read the whole thing.
On a related note, a recent court of appeals ruling stated that the whistleblowing statute of Sarbanes-Oxley does not apply to foreign employees. Yet another reason to ship jobs overseas. Hmm, let's see if politicians can convince the rest of the world to adopt Sarbanes-Oxley to avoid 'unfair' regulatory disharmony.
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