Biotech Values

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Medivir - Possibility of 2013 launch for TMC435

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-22/medivir-expects-to-introduce-hepatitis-c-drug-as-early-as-2013.html?cmpid=yhoo

Medivir May Introduce Hepatitis C Drug as Early as 2013
By Frances Schwartzkopff - Feb 22, 2011 11:27 AM CT

.Medivir AB, which last week began the final stage of testing its experimental hepatitis C tablet, said it expects to start selling the treatment as early as 2013.

Medivir trails Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Merck & Co. in developing the first new hepatitis C treatment in almost a decade. Vertex Chief Financial Officer Ian Smith said in November he didn’t expect competition from Medivir until 2014. Peter Welford, an analyst at Jefferies International Ltd., today said the drug will probably debut that year.

“We have stated the second half of 2013 or the later part of 2013,” Rein Piir, chief financial officer at Huddinge, Sweden-based Medivir, said in a telephone interview today. “That’s definitely still valid.”

Medivir last week began the last and longest clinical trial required for regulatory approval, even as Vertex and Merck await regulators’ approval for their own treatments. The Swedish drugmaker expects its medicine’s once-daily dosing will help it garner more sales.

Welford today estimated the medicine, known as TMC435, will get peak sales of $3.75 billion. The new hepatitis treatments will help grow the market to $15 billion in 2019, he said in an investor note.

Medivir today reported a fourth-quarter loss of 56.5 million kronor ($8.8 million) and said test results so far showed 83 percent of patients taking TMC435 were able to stop all treatment after 24 weeks. Under currently approved drugs, about half of patients remain uncured after one year.

Medivir shares closed unchanged at 140 kronor in Stockholm trading.

To contact the reporter responsible for this story: Frances Schwartzkopff in Copenhagen at [e-mail]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Angela Cullen at [e-mail]
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