Replies to post #58673 on Biotech Values

[genisi]

I think the reporter is mistaken saying that Sun didn't launch. I see at their home page that they did right after Wyeth announced their authorized generic:
http://www.sunpharma.com/admin/news/upload/388.pdf

[Biopharm investor]

"Sun hasn't risked launching and Teva remains the sole generic manufacturer on the market."

Sun has launched and is selling pantoprazole through its partner Caraco. Prasco is also the AG and is on the market.


[edit] Sorry, just saw genisi's post. Hadn't read it when I responded to Dew's post.

[genisi]

Generic-Drug Firms Get Bolder and their patent attornys get richer :-)
Since The CAFC has invalidated Pfizer's Norvasc patent finding it obvious, we'll probably see more rulings like that. However, the KSR decision will make some patents such as follow-on patents (formulation patents, controlled release patents, enantiomer patents and salt patents) more vulnerable.
Composition of matter patents that lean on a subsequent drug in which it is a combination of two known drugs or combined with a delivery vehicle or where the composition is a pre-existing compound, such as the substitution of a methyl group for an ethyl group in a heterocyclic ring.
I believe that enantiomer patents (such as Lexapro, Plavix, Nexium and Levaquin) are especially weak, especially in cases in which the technology to separate them was public knowledge at the time the separation was made.

[DewDiligence]

Wyeth Profit Hurt by Generic Protonix

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINN2241913320080422

>>
Tue Apr 22, 2008 7:40am EDT

NEW YORK, April 22 (Reuters) - Wyeth (WYE) on Tuesday said its first-quarter net profit fell slightly, hurt by the sudden launch early this year of a generic form of its Protonix ulcer drug, but surprisingly strong sales enabled the company to beat Wall Street profit forecasts.

Wyeth said it earned $1.2 billion, or 89 cents per share, compared with $1.25 billion, or 92 cents per share, in the year-earlier period.

Excluding special items, the drugmaker earned 94 cents per share. Analysts on average had expected 90 cents per share, according to Reuters Estimates.

Global revenue rose 6 percent to $5.71 billion, above the Reuters Estimates forecast of $5.49 billion. Excluding the favorable impact of the weak dollar, revenue rose only one percent.

Wyeth in late January had forecast flat revenue and lower earnings for 2008 due to generic competition for Protonix and assumptions about possible generic competition for other medicines.

Protonix had been one of Wyeth's biggest products, with annual sales of more than $1.7 billion, until Israel's Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd introduced its generic despite an unresolved patent dispute with Wyeth.

Protonix revenue plunged 66 percent in the first quarter, to $159 million.

But other big Wyeth drugs had strong offsetting sales gains, including depression treatment Effexor, Enbrel for arthritis, Prevnar to prevent childhood infections, and the company's rebounding Premarin line of female hormone replacement drugs.

Effexor sales rose 15 percent to $1.02 billion, while Prevnar sales jumped 14 percent to $706 million. Sales of Enbrel, which Wyeth markets outside the United States and Canada, soared 36 percent to $606 million, despite strong competition from similar products sold by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Abbott Laboratories Inc (ABT).
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