Six months after a federal appeals court decided a pair of GlaxoSmithKline sales reps are not eligible for overtime pay, they are now asking the US Supreme Court to review their case. And the implications for the pharmaceutical industry are likely to be far-reaching, given that drugmakers have been laying off thousands of sales reps as part of a massive wave of cost cutting in recent years. The petition, however, is not surprising, because there has been a split among appeals courts over this issue. Last year, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that Novartis reps are entitled to overtime (back story), and the Supreme Court earlier this year declined to review the decision (see here).
