Pfizer deployed 4,000 sales reps to tell doctors to stop using a drug with safety problems, pulled all samples, and kept it off the market. The speaker contrasts this rapid, transparent approach with orthopedic companies like Exactech that mishandled crises by avoiding ownership, arguing that honesty protects trust.
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And Pfizer basically said to all 4,000 of— I forget how many it was— you're going into every office, you're calling every office, you're telling everybody, stop using it, pull the samples, take it down. We don't— we're not sure what's happened, but under no circumstances is anybody to keep using this until we get to the bottom of it. And, um, and we wanted— like, they wanted to beat the news cycle because they didn't want doctors' offices getting calls from patients and not knowing anything, and they gave us a very specific thing to say, and it was not duck and cover. It was very, we're not sure, this is not something we've seen, so stop using it. And if patients are on it right now, here's what to counsel them. Everything. We, we were on the phone all day long calling doctors' offices, all day long, for about 2 and a half days, because it hit the Wall Street Journal later that day. And every single office, the drug ended up being pulled from the market. Uh, it was pulled and it never saw the light of day again. And I remember thinking like, oh yeah, this is the old Johnson Johnson Tylenol. This is how you do it. And, and if anything, like it was horrible in two offices I had to go into, but everybody complimented us. And I don't think, because they handled it the right way. And I don't know if that's what Exactech did. I've heard some of the stories. I don't know all the details, but I just think like, If you attack it, um, and own it and eat it, like, everybody tends to be, okay, I'm glad you did it. And their respect for you goes up. And I just, uh, but then I've seen some of this and I've seen a lot of stuff, examples of the exact opposite, and it ends up, it just ends up being such a massive problem.