(Last updated September 29, 2025)
In a recent conversation with a former pharma CEO, we reflected on just how much the industry has shifted. He began his career in the early ’90s as a sales rep at one of the largest companies, a time when relationships drove prescriptions and product differences were minimal. Those days are long gone.
Even after running a specialty oncology company—where reps were considered the “best of the best”—he admitted their impact was limited.
Today, access is restricted, oversight is heavy, and strong relationships rarely move the needle.
As he put it, many reps have become little more than “humored guests,” tolerated but not essential. Without a value proposition that connects to practice economics and patient outcomes, conversations stall. Meanwhile, C-suites chase quarterly results and manage risk, pushing complexity downstream.
What once took one or two people now requires whole teams, as the buying process grows more tangled, driven by managed care, formulary positioning, EMR systems, and clinical pathways.
Key Takeaways
- Relevance drives influence. In today’s environment, relationships alone aren’t enough. Pharma sales training must focus on teaching representatives how to link product benefits directly to patient outcomes and practice economics, so that conversations create value instead of noise.
- Leadership sets the tone. Without managers who can coach effectively and hold teams accountable, even the most advanced training programs fail. Strong pharma sales training needs to be reinforced by leaders who prioritize coaching, business acumen, and accountability at every level.
- Future-proofing requires continuous development. Just as clinical education never stops, ongoing pharma sales training is essential to equip reps, managers, and executives with marketplace literacy and collaboration skills that align with evolving healthcare systems.
The Root of the Problem: Selling Without Value
The issue isn’t just access, it’s relevance. Reps today are rarely trained to “connect the dots” in ways that resonate with overburdened practices and health systems. Physicians and nurses face shortages. Practices wrestle with treatment algorithms, patient access pathways, and system-wide pressures that extend beyond product features.
Too often, pharma responds by adding more people to commercial teams, MSLs, market access, and omni-channel marketing, without true collaboration. The result is more noise, not more clarity. Customers feel fatigued, and even the best reps struggle to show how a product helps staff and patients.
Reps don’t need to lead conversations about value-based care or managed markets—that’s the role of MSLs and access teams. But they do need pharma sales training that links product benefits to what customers care about:
- Reducing office visits, easing administrative burdens, or lowering the total cost of care.
- Fitting into treatment pathways and algorithms that drive prescribing decisions.
- Helping address physicians and nursing shortages.
Without this, reps remain “humored guests” present but not essential. Many fall back on repeating features and clinica claims that the physicians already know. Others rely on conferences that become little more than meet-and-greets. And companies, instead of addressing the root problem, keep adding roles—MSLs, reimbursement reps, nurse educators—as band-aids.
Leadership and Training Gaps
Many CEOs will say training is broken, and training teams often respond by trying to reinvent the wheel. But often, it isn’t a training problem — it’s a leadership and accountability problem. Leaders set the tone, and when they fail to invest in development or reinforce the basics, the entire system falters.
Most companies underinvest in leadership development, managed markets training, and manager coaching skills — business acumen, accountability, and change management. Instead, they roll out one-off workshops or generic modules. Managers aren’t equipped to reinforce behaviors, so turnover stays high.
Even the basics — field coaching reports, performance management, accountability — are missing. And without those foundations, no methodology (Challenger, Sandler, Richardson, or otherwise) will ever stick.
This is where pharma sales training must evolve. It’s not just about product knowledge, but about preparing managers to coach effectively, hold teams accountable, and bridge the gap between corporate strategy and field execution.
The gap grows wider at senior levels. Regional directors often don’t know how to coach managers. VPs juggle running the business while trying to develop their leaders. Academic programs provide theory, but not field-ready skills.
Contrast that with the military, where training is continuous and progressive: junior officers build fundamentals, senior officers refine them to prepare for future challenges. Pharma could learn from that philosophy — leaders must lead, and pharma sales training should reflect that continuous development approach.
Building an Industry Academy
Our industry does have think tanks and collaborative forums — from academic centers like Tufts CSDD, to patient-focused groups such as EFPIA’s Patient Think Tank, to professional bodies like ISPE and ACMA that convene leaders around innovation and standards. These play valuable roles in shaping policy, research, and collaboration.
But what’s missing is a dedicated platform for leadership development across the commercial–medical divide. Existing think tanks rarely address how sales leaders, market access, and medical affairs can jointly prepare for the pressures of tomorrow’s healthcare system.
That’s where the idea of an industry academy comes in: a space not for policy debate alone, but for building people — teaching marketplace literacy, empowering leaders, breaking down silos, and aligning teams to the mission of saving lives and enabling healthcare professionals. In short, an academy designed to future-proof pharma leadership, the way Tufts CSDD has helped future-proof drug development.
Five Imperatives for Pharma Leadership
Teach Marketplace Literacy
Everyone — from reps to executives — must understand how reimbursement, practice economics, and system-wide pressures connect to the Quintuple Aim: better outcomes, lower costs, improved patient experience, improved clinician experience, and equity.
Shared literacy isn’t just about business fluency — it’s about ensuring the industry can deliver on its mission to improve health and save lives. Pharma sales training that incorporates marketplace literacy creates reps who can connect product value to healthcare system priorities.
Empower Managers as Coaches
Coaching is not optional; it’s central to developing people who carry out the mission every day. Managers need annual training, certification, and peer-to-peer practice so they can have real conversations that drive performance.
You can’t fix what you can’t talk about. Great coaching builds accountability and capability, ensuring teams are equipped to support healthcare professionals and their patients. Integrating pharma sales training with manager coaching ensures lessons are reinforced in the field.
Integrate & collaborate
Creating new roles to mitigate risk only overwhelms customers and fragments support. The mission demands better collaboration and integrated business planning so that every team member — sales, medical, access — is aligned to the same customer goals: enabling healthcare professionals to deliver the best possible care. Pharma sales training must expand to include collaboration and cross-functional alignment.
Use innovation to drive real change
Innovation can’t stop at the product pipeline. To fulfill its mission, pharma must also innovate in how it engages customers.
Leaders should foster innovation hubs that allow safe trials of new engagement models. The goal isn’t chasing fads or piling on tech — it’s using what we already have more effectively to help healthcare professionals practice more efficiently and patients receive better outcomes. Modern pharma sales training should encourage innovation in engagement strategies as much as in science.
Commit to Ongoing Development
Pharma saves lives, yet ranks barely above tobacco and government in public trust. This should be an industry people aspire to join for its prestige and purpose, not just compensation.
Leaders must commit to mission-driven development — building people at every level around the higher calling of saving lives and enabling healthcare professionals. That’s how the industry restores pride and creates lasting capability.
Embedding continuous pharma sales training at every level helps cultivate pride, trust, and long-term capability.
The Call to Action
So, is pharma sales broken? In its current form, yes. Reps alone can’t fix it, and adding more roles only compounds the problem. At its core, this is a leadership challenge
The path forward is clear: teach marketplace literacy, empower managers as coaches, integrate and collaborate across functions, use innovation to improve how we engage, and commit to mission-driven development.
These aren’t quick fixes; they’re leadership imperatives supported by pharma sales training.
Pharma has the privilege of saving lives. That mission should inspire trust, prestige, and pride in the profession. The question now is whether leaders will step up to build an industry worthy of that mission — or allow broken systems to keep undermining the people and patients who depend on it.
Sales isn’t broken because of the reps — it’s broken because leaders haven’t invested in pharma sales training, coaching, and accountability Leaders lead. If you want to stop turnover, improve physician engagement, and future-proof your sales force, the change starts at the top.
Ready to turn “humored guests” into trusted partners? Invest in pharma sales training that builds relevance, accountability, and long-term impact. Let’s talk.
