Sales rep cuts in France, LEEM offers help

Between 5,000 and 6,000 pharmaceutical sales representatives jobs are likely to be lost in France by 2010, according to the research-based drugmakers' group, the LEEM. The anticipated restructuring would involve a head count reduction of one in five, the group said.

Pascal Le Guyader, the LEEM's director of social affairs and employment, announced the launch of a web site (www.evolutionvm.org) to help drugmakers' marketing staff reposition themselves in the job market. He told the financial daily newspaper, Les Echos: "there will remain about 17,000 sales reps," with substantial changes to working practices to make it more of a knowledge-based and future-oriented activity. Mr Le Guyader noted that a "total suppression" of physician visits is not on the cards: "we are returning to the ratios of the years 1990-1995," he said.