[Sell-side analysts now have peak forecasts of $8-9B for Crestor, which could make it the second-biggest-selling drug of all time.]
>> Tue Apr 1, 2008 8:25am EDT By Ben Hirschler
LONDON (Reuters) - AstraZeneca's (AZN) Crestor is emerging as a potential big winner in the fiercely competitive anti-cholesterol market, with two brokerages on Tuesday hiking sales forecasts for the drug to $8-9 billion (4-4.5 billion pounds).
Shares in the Anglo-Swedish group, which have been hit recently by fears of generic competition to its top medicines, jumped for a second day, adding 5.5 percent by 1 p.m., the biggest daily gain in more than four months.
Japan's Shionogi & Co Ltd (4507.T), which originally developed Crestor, soared more than 9 percent.
JPMorgan said positive results from a clinical trial of Crestor in certain patients with low or normal cholesterol could lift worldwide annual sales to $9 billion by 2016[!]
That is more than three times the $2.8 billion sold in 2007 and 50 percent above the brokerage's previous 2016 estimate, prompting it to lift its stock recommendation "neutral" from "underweight".
Dresdner Kleinwort analysts raised their 2012 sales forecast to $8.3 billion from $5.5 billion on the back of the decision to end the so-called Jupiter study early because of good results, which was announced on Monday.
For AstraZeneca, the timing could not be better.
The surprise good news for Crestor, its third-biggest product, contrasts sharply with criticism from leading cardiologists at a weekend medical meeting of Merck & Co (MRK) and Schering-Plough's (SGP) rival product Vytorin.
Unlike Crestor, Vytorin has failed to show benefits in clinical outcome trials.
MORE AMMUNITION
Investors have yet to see the scale of the improvement in patient outcome in the Jupiter study, which involved 15,000 people. But the surprise decision to end it early because of "unequivocal evidence of a reduction in cardiovascular morbidity and mortality" stands to give AstraZeneca a big advantage.
"In that Vytorin has been viewed as a main competitor to Crestor, AstraZeneca sales reps will now have more ammunition to argue their case," said Evolution Securities analyst Peter Cartwright.
JPMorgan estimates statin drugs like Crestor are currently taken by 16 million people in the United States alone. Yet there are 25-30 million with low to normal cholesterol but raised levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), the group targeted in Jupiter trial.
CRP, an inflammatory biomarker, is known to be associated with risk of heart attack.
"We believe there is the potential to double the statin market, through this new patient population," JPMorgan analyst Craig Maxwell and colleagues wrote in a note. "Crestor, with its best-in-class profile, and Jupiter outcomes study to back it up, should be a big beneficiary."
Crestor is a key product for AstraZeneca at a time when sales of its top seller, ulcer pill Nexium, are slowing and both Nexium and its second-biggest drug Seroquel, for schizophrenia, face the threat of generic competition. <<
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