Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Vytorin, Zetia Are Losing Altitude Fast

[The share of TRx’s is down but, more important, the share of NRx’s is way down.]

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/01/22/vytorin-prescriptions-decline-amid-scrutiny

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January 22, 2008, 4:15 pm
by Jacob Goldstein

Last week’s Vytorin trifecta of unflattering study data, media scrutiny and hit prescriptions of the cholesterol combo pill pretty hard.

Prescriptions for Vytorin fell about 9.5% to 359,659 in the week ended Jan. 18 according to an estimate from Verispan cited by Dow Jones Newswires. Prescriptions for Zetia (which comprises half of Vytorin and is also sold as a stand-alone drug) fell 12% to 258,619, Verispan said.

Market share as a percentage of new prescriptions for cholesterol drugs fell as well, according to Catherine Arnold of Credit Suisse. Vytorin’s share was 9.2% during the time period ended Jan. 20, down from 11.1% before the news broke. And Zetia’s share was 6.1%, down from 7.7%.

So now the question is whether that was a one-time dip or the start of a sustained decline for the drugs, which are co-marketed by Merck and Schering-Plough and had sales of $3.73 billion in the first nine months of 2007.

Schering CEO Fred Hassan said last week that the science behind the drugs is still solid. But DJ Newswires cites Leerink Swann analyst Seamus Fernandez, who estimates that prescribing levels for Zetia and Vytorin will decline by at least 15% in 2008 because of the study results.

Primary care docs who write the most prescriptions have shifted quickly toward generic simvastatin and away from Vytorin and Zetia to treat cholesterol, according to data from ImpactRx. Vytorin’s share of new prescriptions written by the influential doctors fell to 5% for the rolling seven-day period ending Jan. 21 from 11% the week before. Simvastatin’s share climbed to 43% from 33% on the same basis.
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