Taming the Big Pharma Monster by Speaking Truth to Power—a Little Reward for Paid Subscribers

Since all my posts are free now (until 3 months has elapsed), I thought to reward my paid subscribers with a little gift.

What is it, I hear you think? It is an electronic copy (PDF) of Taming the Big Pharma Monster, by Speaking Truth to Power, published in 2019. The book was produced by an experienced publisher in the UK, Filament Publishing.

Scroll down to the bottom to download if you are a paid subscriber.

Filament did a brilliant job of the book cover:

This is how the Preface begins:

“I almost didn’t write this book. My maiden and two subsequent attempts, despite receiving great reviews, were disappointing in terms of sales. I had been certain the world was hungry to hear the messages within, not just to inform and educate on my speciality subject—strategic management of the supply chain—but also to help catalyse change for the better in the medicines (pharmaceutical) industry, with tongue-in-cheek accounts of what’s been going on, and wrong.

As I think back, the important messages were about as popular as the Conservative Club in Moscow to a world believing there was no better, more patient-centred way.

Undeterred, I have continued to preach the messages at conferences, in professional journals, and through webcasts and podcasts. The presentation I give is purposefully provocative.

I’ve resorted to giving the drug development and commercialisation process a funny name—find it, file it, flog it—and semi-ridiculing the notion of scientists discovering blockbuster drugs in the dead of night, surrounded by test tubes, Bunsen burners and other apparatus involved in deep chemistry.

The audiences are mainly polite. People tend not to challenge me on what I say, although there must be a lot of skepticism underneath. Only once have I been taken to task, at a conference, by an industry leader who appeared greatly irritated by such frank expression of opinion that was clearly counter to his own. It took me by surprise at the time.

I have recently been toying with the idea of writing something even more direct and explicit than my previous attempts, accessible to an informed patient, industry professionals and other key stakeholders. Something has been stopping me though.

It’s one thing shouting in the dark when people aren’t listening, but if they do listen and take it all in, that would place a whole new burden of responsibility on me to follow through with it.

For reassurance, I recently returned to my copy of The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. His view is that creativity is blood, sweat, and tears, and a fight against the fear of creating something at which others will pick, often deeply.

It requires a steely determination to keep resisting the knot in your stomach telling you to stop and pursue more tranquil endeavors, to turn up at your desk every morning to write the next instalment.”

At the time of publication, COVID had been invented, but the world didn’t know about it. Sales, therefore, were slow, to the point where royalties weren’t enough to cover inkjet cartridges for my printer. I therefore cancelled the publishing contract with Filament and self-published with Amazon KDP:

TAMING THE BIG PHARMA MONSTER: By Speaking Truth to Power

I was gutted to lose the cover!