TheStreet) It's been a rough six months for's stock options price has been almost decline in half since FDA approved Vascepa on July 26. It's not unconventional these days to see a drug businesses shares fall immediately after the FDA approval. was an extreme event, exacerbated by the lingering Duvetica Sale concern surrounding Vascepa's market exclusivity and management's wherewithal to land a marketing partner or sell the company outright.
Although the national commercial launch involving Vascepa today gives a chance to put all the negativity and doubt of the past six months behind the idea. Vascepa reduces high triglyceride levels inside the blood without causing heights of LDL C your so called "bad cholesterol."(GSK ) rivalling fish oil pill Lovaza also brings down triglycerides but at the expense of soaring bad cholesterol.
Lovaza is a blockbuster drug, generating $725 million to get Glaxo in the first nine months of 2012 and $926 mil in 2011. Vascepa could also be a runaway success, if can market the medication successfully. That means finding innovative patients to try Vascepa and persuading doctors to switch patients out of Lovaza.
Easier said than done. launches Vascepa on its own, without a Massive Pharma partner's financial resources along with marketing expertise. Vascepa also goes in the lipid lowering market place at a time when some
doctors have been dialing back their particular use of prescription grade fish-oil because of doubts raised regarding the drugs' true cardiovascular benefit.
administration has cautioned investors not to expect Vascepa to rocket out of the starting gate but the company is providing co pay tax assistance, discounts and free Vascepa products to spur early desire during the launch.
No one stated 's job would be uncomplicated, which is why its stock investments for $8 per share currently and not $15 per share while Vascepa was approved. At a $1.A pair of billion market value, already prices with approximately $200 300 million with Vascepa sales. But if early sales are strong, 's stock price can, and likely will, jump.
How will investors know if Vascepa's start is a success?
has decided to hinder wholesaler prescription data via third party data services IMS Health insurance and Wolters Kluwer. This makes it difficult, if not not possible, for analysts and institutional shareholders to measure weekly and regular monthly Vascepa prescriptions.
Absent these separate data sources, investors may rely on 's quarterly financial reports, and they will look to see if Vascepa sales meet Wall Street's expectations. A few sell side analysts include published estimates for every 3 months Vascepa sales during 2013, in accordance with
The mean consensus and also the range from these five professionals are as follows:
1st quarter: $10 million (range $5 15 million)
Second quarter: $18 million (range $10 30 million)
3rd quarter: $46 mil (range $8 69 million)
Last quarter: $54 million (range $37 Information and facts million)
For all of 2013, this Vascepa consensus sales estimate is definitely $114 million from nine promote side analysts, according toIt's not necessarily a fair comparison, but buyers will be using the early many months of the 2005 Lovaza launch as a yardstick by which to judge a performance of and Vascepa. gross sales from the launch in the lastly quarter 2005 through the secondly quarter 2008. The information comes from a Pronova Biopharma slide deck. Pronova built Lovaza for Reliant Pharmaceuticals and later on Glaxo, which bought Reliant inside 2007.
By 2014, may convey more of an advantage over Glaxo if Food approves an expanded signal for Vascepa allowing the pill to be marketed for people with high (as opposed to very high) triglyceride levels. Significant use in this greater patient population may not definitely ramp, however, until can demonstrate that the combination of Vascepa and a statin cuts down on incidence and risk of cardiac arrest. An ongoing study designed to exhibit this benefit isn't be ready to be completed until 2016.
