Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Sells a Drug Before It Exists — and Makes It #1 in the Country
Background
Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical — later merged with Fujisawa Pharmaceutical to form Astellas Pharma Inc. — was preparing to bring a new urological drug, Vesicare, to the United States market. When the sales force was mobilized, the drug was still in Phase 3 clinical trials. Approval was not guaranteed, and the company’s growth strategy rested heavily on this single product.
The Challenge
Regulatory timelines meant it would be roughly two years before Vesicare could be sold in the U.S. In the meantime, the company made an unconventional decision: send 200 sales representatives and their district managers into physicians’ offices to educate, promote, and build demand for a drug they could not yet deliver. This created a psychological challenge unlike anything traditional sales training addresses:
- Physicians questioned why they were being sold something unavailable to them.
- Reps faced two years of daily conversations with no close, no order, and no measurable win.
- Legitimate doubt existed inside the team about whether the drug would even be approved.
- Emotional fatigue mounted, credibility eroded, and many on the team believed the assignment was simply impossible.
Catalyst for Change
Steve Siebold was brought in to mentally fortify the team. There was no product knowledge to sharpen and no closing technique to practice — the reps needed the ability to perform, repeatedly and convincingly, without reinforcement. When they told Steve it was impossible to sell a product they didn’t have, his answer was that this is precisely what mental toughness is for.
Implementation
Over the course of two years, Steve led a structured Mental Toughness Process built around the specific demands of a pre-launch campaign, delivering approximately 40 sessions across the national convention, regional meetings, national meetings, and ongoing work with district managers. The training equipped the team to:
- Reframe rejection as an expected condition of the assignment rather than a verdict on their performance.
- Sustain conviction and credibility in low-reward, high-resistance conversations.
- Manage emotional fatigue across a two-year horizon with no closable business.
- Stay mission-driven and disciplined when short-term results were unavailable by definition.
District managers were trained first and held accountable for reinforcing the process in the field, which allowed the mindset to hold across 24 months rather than fade after a strong meeting.
Results
By the time Vesicare received approval and launched in the United States, the groundwork had already been laid. Physicians were educated, familiar with the product, and prepared to prescribe. The team was not introducing a new drug — they were collecting on two years of relationship building.
- Vesicare became the #1 urological drug in the country following launch.
- Representatives and managers reported record commissions and incentive earnings.
- Several district managers earned enough through the launch to retire.
- The company achieved market penetration that would have taken years to build post-launch.
Lessons Learned
Every sales organization can train product knowledge, and most can train selling skills. Almost none train how their people think under pressure — the single variable that determines whether a team can execute when there is no reward in front of them. Vesicare wasn’t sold by a better presentation. It was sold by 200 people who were mentally equipped to keep showing up, keep believing, and keep building demand for something they couldn’t yet put in a physician’s hand. When the product finally arrived, the market was already theirs.
Here’s the website:
https://www.mtuec.com/mentaltoughnessu
There’s a 6 minute 48 second video at the top with Steve Siebold introducing it and then some testimonials from high-level execs.
John Chapin
johnchapin@completeselling.com