Astellas Pharma Reviews

Pros

Its a great place to get entry level experience in the industry. The employees are friendly and helpful. Numerous opportunites to grow in the company and internal promotions are the standard.

Cons

High turnover of Senior management and having to constantly rebuild relationships. Reflects departmental production and the following of standard operating procedures.

Advice to Senior Management

Look for candidates with a more proven track record for meeting departmental goals, so that failure will not result in replacement.

Pros

Small pharma easy to adapt to market changes in a rapid manor. Great retirement 401k plan with year end retirement bonus.

Cons

Very difficult to move up in organization. Seem to hire external candidates over promoting from within regardless of internal employee experience.

Pros

Benefits are pretty good when comparing to other companies
International environment with great colleagues who are supportive

Cons

Managment (including senior) are not accountable to anything. There is lack of leadership and absolutely no people management. The only department that actually functions and work well together is regulatory affairs. Very unclear with job prospectives internally. For some posisitons it is just announced that a person will start a new role without any advertisement internally. These jobs typically go to nit-wit men who can talk but not act. Never thought I would say this in my career but advancement of men is far faster than women with same education, background and work stamina.
Be warned to stay away from drug safety, absolute worst department with horrible management. Will ask people to work on temporary contacts with the promise of a permanent contract. One it comes time to offer a permanent contract they bail on you despite having good, positive annual reviews. Personally I do not understand how the management has lasted so long without being sacked.
There is a real struggle with the APGD stucture. All regions are in a fight to be the lead.
HR is absolute worst of all companies `i have worked for. Never responsible for anything. Give not help when asked.
Work hours are long and under-appreciated. Just expected to work until you drop and will not get thanks.

Advice to Senior Management

Management it is time to start fresh with a new management team in almost all departments. Start making you team accountable. start listening to employees not managment, this is why you are in so much trouble.

Pros

people are great to work for

Cons

salary not great. worked for better

Advice to Senior Management

management good for most part

Pros

money and the great benefits

Cons

awful management & micro managing represenatives

Advice to Senior Management

listen to your represenative

Pros

Benefits are very good, good medical insurance at fair cost
Work Life Balance-hours can be long but not unmanageable
Industry knowledge can be gained

Cons

Sr Management in Chicago is not focused on common goals. They often convince leadership in Japan of things which are not correct.

Advice to Senior Management

Be honest, think of yourself as a normal person not someone above others. Financial struggles are everywhere, lead by example.

Pros

Excellent benefits (health, dental, life, etc.), company car, strong 401k with additional annual bump
Good Income/bonus, stock option alternative compared to other companies
Good vacation time, half day Fridays, very good work-life balance (depending upon your manager)
Annual year end shutdown between Christmas and New Years

Cons

Very, very, very poor management (although some managers are trying to improve and have become much better) Senior Management represents the biggest problem. Many of them are so embarrassing and have no business being employed by the company.
Some managers are very mean
Remember, in this line of work, you don't necessarily work for a company, you work for your manager, if they are bad, you are screwed. However, if they are at least decent, you are in a good to great spot.
Some managers are not very fair in how they share recognition or respect.
Company can be highly political, especially in certain departments
Scientific Affairs is a good place to work, but other departments I would not go near.
Sales force seems to be under a great deal of pressure to deliver.
Some backstabbing, caddy behavior, and inappropriate behavior.

Advice to Senior Management

Clean up the ranks. Get competent people who know how to lead.
There is a lot of things that occur that are highly inappropriate, especially in sales. Most of it has to do with certain managers

Pros

very good pay, some opportunities for career growth, no lack of work, non-management coworkers are excellent, flexible work hours, growing company

Cons

lots of politics at the management level leads to shifting priorities, team goals, and worst of all, very good talent is sometimes let go. management as a whole seems too intent on protecting itself and not caring about the team.

Advice to Senior Management

need to get together and figure out company goals, then work together to achieve them instead of blaming each other, etc.

Pros

R&D organization (NL) is a great place to work:
- open atmosphere,
- strong focus on learning and personal development
- good career opportunities
- a strong company culture with interesting colleagues, which if you fit in makes work a great place to be

Cons

R&D and marketing are not in the same location, which makes the effective collaboration between those important functions more challenging.

Advice to Senior Management

.

Pros

Great pay, great benefits, company car. Decent products

Cons

Terrible leadership. Purely numbers driven.

Advice to Senior Management

Realize that there are situations that can't be fixed