Arjun had been a regional sales manager for eleven years. He had seen doctors change prescription habits, drug reps morph into digital avatars, and CRM tools evolve from paper diaries to AI-driven dashboards. But nothing—nothing—had prepared him for the silence that came after the launch of the new FDC.
That was the first crack. In pharma, primary sales meant what the company sold to stockists. Secondary meant what stockists sold to retailers. Tertiary meant what retailers sold to patients. A beautiful primary number with a rotten tertiary was not success—it was a lie waiting to metastasize. Fdc Sales Mis
He pulled up the prescription trend for Dr. Meera Iyengar, a pulmonologist in the city’s top lung hospital. Her prescription numbers for Nebuflam-D had gone from zero to forty in the first week—after his star rep had visited her thrice—and then dropped to two in the third week. But the MIS showed zero patient redemptions from her prescriptions. That meant either patients weren’t buying it, or the prescriptions were never written. Arjun had been a regional sales manager for eleven years
Palpitations. The steroid component had a known but rare cardiac risk. In clinical trials, it occurred in 0.3% of patients. But if even one patient reported it to a senior doctor like Iyengar, she would blacklist the FDC forever. The MIS, however, would not capture why she stopped. It would only show a line descending. Numbers without stories were dangerous. That was the first crack
“And week three?”
“Primary sales are strong,” his boss had said in the morning review. “But secondary is dead. The product is leaving our warehouse but not moving off pharmacy shelves.”
“Yes sir, forty scripts. I saw them myself. She wrote them in front of me.”