Within two years, both he and Schering-Plough itself. . . were. . . GONE. That was no vendetta, it was the law being applied to a guy who thought he was above it. [Sound like familiar theme, here? Yep.]
Now, to be fair, though Fred walked away with close to $220 million, he was NOT a major controlling shareholder of old SGP. Bezos cannot so easily be shown the gate, by his shareholders -- but he may well regret bringing what amounts to a negative ad campaign / PR offensive (using stenographers in the MSM) against the FTC, this week:
. . .Amazon has accused the US Trade Commission of harassing its top executives, including founder Jeff Bezos and chief executive Andy Jassy, as part of a probe into the ecommerce group’s Prime membership scheme.
Since March 2021, the regulator has been investigating whether Amazon uses deceptive techniques to lure customers into signing up for Prime, the subscription service that offers free delivery and other benefits at a cost of $139 a year.
The FTC is also examining whether Amazon unfairly complicates the process for customers who want to cancel their membership.
In a filing from August 5 that was made public by the regulator on Monday, Amazon said the investigation had become “unduly burdensome” on employees and executives after at least 19 were served individual subpoenas — or Civil Investigative Demands — to give evidence.
The company called for the FTC to “quash or limit” the demands, which it alleged served no other purpose other than to “harass Amazon’s highest-ranking executives and disrupt its business operations. . . .”
The FTC’s investigation has been extended to four other Amazon subscription services including its ebook service Kindle Unlimited and music streaming platform Amazon Music. . . .
Well -- here's a novel idea, Mr. Bezos. . . start complying with both the letter, and the spirit, of federal law. . . then we might. . . talk. Out, grinning. Ever grinning. . . .
नमस्ते
I fail to see what his complaining about FDA in April 2008 has to do with his and SP being gone.
ReplyDeleteThirteen months before this (Mar 2007) he entered into an agreement to buy Organon and then closed the deal in (Nov 2007) with the apparent intent to then turn around and sell SP to another company. Just like he had done before with him taking home a nice check in the process.
A do hear you, Anon.
ReplyDeleteBut the company was on the verge of collapse, as Vytorin was ~40% of all of Schering-Plough's sales, and over 65% of all its profits.
It had become a one trick pony. And the ENHANCE study, long delayed. . . completely wiped out that juggernaut, when it was finally released.
World-renown cardiologist, Harlan Krumholz, at Yale Medical School, called Vytorin "a very expensive placebo." He was right.
Meanwhile Hassan was flogging Vytorin -- and Merck ended up having to buy SGP -- lock, stock and barrel. . . to avoid blow-back to the 50/50 partnership the two had in selling Vytorin.
All of this is the subject of about. . . 400 posts of mine here, from 2008 to 2012.
And now I'll go find his remarks about FDA and SEC -- to the WSJ, complaining that they were causing the SGP stock decline, from $26 to $13 -- not the indisputable fact that (due to ENHANCE) 60% of the profits were... illusory.
See next post. . . with links -- but yes, he was a buster, not a builder -- as we saw at Pharmacia and others he led.
Excellent comment!
Do look toward the bottom of this post (linked immediately below) -- it has long been my contention (backed by copious documentation) that Mr. Hassan specifically misrepresented the sales-trends of Vytorin -- to the WSJ; and blamed the stock decline on "overly negative" comments made by SEC and FDA officials, in the various Congressional investigations, into the Vytorin debacle -- but NOT because the cliff / crash in Vytorin sales was almost solely due to Fred's DELAY in the publication of the ENHANCE study results, all while -- for four years, selling billions of dollars worth of this placebo:
ReplyDeletehttp://shearlingsplowed.blogspot.com/2010/06/appalling-look-back-at-some-schering.html
The top- and bottom- line was (and is!) he never would accept responsibility for getting caught "gaming" the FDA process -- same way Bezos is "gaming" the FTC rules on both product-tying / monopolization / and predator market manipulations -- to unlawfully stifle competition.
Namaste. . . .
Thanks. I did not know the depth of what had occurred with Vytorin.
ReplyDeleteHey -- no worries!
ReplyDeleteIt was indeed a very surreal time. . . all the best, and do stop back by!
Namaste. . . .