Replies to post #104100 on Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

The difficulty in gaining hospital sales as compared to retail, in my view, exists in the form of obtaining GPO contracts. While not all GPO contracts are with SNY enough of the big ones are so that if the figures mentioned today are strictly supplying wholesalers then it's not as bullish as it might seem on the surface. I wonder if there's any way to know how much of the wholesaler supply has trickled down to their hospital clients?

I would suggest that you are painting with too fine a brush. Wheeler said today that the commercial uptake of Lovenox in the two settings is similar, and this is consistent with what Sandoz itself said would happen on a webcast I heard two years ago (the one with the slide shown in #msg-53216579).

In other words, the commercial launch of generic Lovenox appears to be going according to plan. Until we get further color on NVS’ 3Q10 CC, that’s good enough for me.

[zipjet]

Are the hospital figures simply supply channel (i.e., wholesalers)?

I don't see how. It would make Wheeler's statements deceptive and actionable - read class action material.

I wonder if there's any way to know how much of the wholesaler supply has trickled down to their hospital clients?

You could buy the IMS hospital data series. But why? Wheeler has told us all we need to know.

ij

[iwfal]

EyeAmBill - MNTA GPO's and pricing:

It has been mentioned on this board that the reason for the difference between the script market share (over 50% at this point) and the $ market share is the unit size being sold by Sandox is smaller on average than being sold by SNY.

But are there other factors at play:

a) Do we have data to confirm that all the major GPOs actually have contracts with Sandoz? If not then the market share of Sandoz in hospitals could be substantially different than in scripts.

b) How different is the Sandoz price to a GPO than the Sandoz price to a retailer? 30%? 50%? 2x?

These don't matter hugely - but it would be interesting to know what events would potentially kick up the $ market share.