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by Ed Silverman

The big drugmaker faces the same problems as the rest of the industry and so, last week, asked its entire sales force - which numbers between 5,000 and 6,000 in the U.S. - to decide whether to accept a package. However, AstraZeneca prefers to avoid the term buyout and instead instructed its reps to ’self identify’ their interest in walking out the door.

At the same time, the drugmaker is merging portions of its various sales teams - the CNS division with with the Hospital group and the Respiratory division with Medical Care. An AstraZeneca spokesman declined to discuss specifics - such as the total number of reps the drugmaker would like to shed - but did provide this statement:

“AstraZeneca is making changes to our sales force, which will be managed first by looking at vacancies and offering field sales employees the opportunity to self-identify whether they are interested in leaving the company. We will know the full scope of the changes in the coming weeks.”

Zacks Investment Research recently predicted AstraZeneca will lose $11.1 billion in patented-protected revenue by the end of 2012. One of the biggest sellers to eventually face lower-cost generics will be Seroquel XR, the antipsychotic, which generated about $4.5 billion in revenue last year.

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