Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Re: Musings on competitive landscape in FoB’s

What are your thoughts on Sandoz's prospects in the biosimilars market?

NVS’ Sandoz division is currently the leading player in the FoB market; however, the FoB market today consists almost entirely of EPO and G-CSF knockoffs—which are relatively simple to make—sold in Europe and emerging markets. These FoB’s are branded drugs that must be heavily marketed to compete against the established brand-name products they are similar to, which cuts sharply into the profit margin.

As the FoB market expands to the US and includes more complex proteins such as mAbs and Enbrel-like fusion compounds, NVS will become just one of several players with roughly comparable technology, IMO. The BAX-MNTA collaboration has a much better chance to succeed in developing interchangeable FoB’s for the US market, which is where the big payoff will be.

p.s. I do not consider generic Copaxone an FoB.