Replies to post #728 on Halozyme Therapeutics Inc (HALO)

[fgnoms]

Rod - a question about HumulinR. I understand that the patent has expired but when I googled this I found out the following;-

Generic Humulin R
At this time, there are no generic Humulin R products licensed for sale. Insulin medications are considered "biologic" drugs, which are regulated by certain laws that prevent any generic versions from being manufactured in the United States. Until these laws change, no generic drug companies will be allowed to produce any generic Humulin R products.
Humulin R is made by Hospira, Inc. and is marketed and distributed by Eli Lilly and Company. At this time, there are no generic versions of Humulin R (or any other insulins) available.

Where does this leave HALO? Presumably unless the law changes they will not be able to launch a generic version of HumulinR themselves.

With regard to the expenditure position everything depends on when the Phase 3 trials commence. These will be very expensive - too expensive I would imagine for HALO to carry the costs of more than one of these alone unless they get further deals, milestones, royalties etc.

[rkrw]

Agree with your entire post except i'm not positive holding cheetah longer will mean more money. At this point we can't be sure it will be seen as an attractive program. What I had mentioned a while back was that a biodel success would be a good thing for halo and that was somewhat lost on folks. biodel flopped and was exposed. I think partners will want evidence that cheetah won't suffer from the same problems, which could include everything from efficacy to injection site reactions. The other worry would be that in this managed care environment, is a branded very rapid acting insulin really worth paying a huge premium over a generic analog insulin? Personally I'd prefer halo partner with Novo Nordisk much more than lilly but its far too early for me to see this as a surefire commercial success.