Replies to post #118681 on Biotech Values

[jbog]

jq1234,

Many of us forget that the normal MS patient will be on these drugs for decades, so by far one of the most important features of these products are their safety profiles.

BG-12 is dimethyl-fumarate which has been used for psoriasis in Europe since mid 1994. The side effects are well known (GI, Flushing) at its present dosage (360-480mg) and the physicians titrate the dose to ease the side effects.

Todays BG-12 trial used 240mg BID or TID, and without Biogen explaining the side effects we have to use caution going forward.

Lastly, in the end, I think they will take the safest oral and combine in with a safe injection (copaxone) and end up with wonderful, tolerable results.

[DewDiligence]

For MNTA investors, commercial success of Gilenya and BG-12 (in due course) has both bullish and bearish aspects. The bearish aspect—increased competition for Copaxone—is obvious and has been quantified to some degree, e.g. in #msg-59293907.

The bullish aspect of these drugs’ commercial success is subtler and may not yet have been detected by most investors: if Laquinimod turns out to be a commercial lightweight compared to Gilenya and BG-12, Teva might opt to continue some US detailing of Copaxone even after it goes generic. With a fully substitutable generic on the market, NVS/MNTA could thereby get a free ride from Teva’s marketing efforts.

If anyone here thinks this is crazy, please think again. If Teva is unable to “switch” a substantial number of Copaxone users to Laquinimod because the Laquinimod clinical data do not measure up, Teva does not have another big prospect in its pipeline to fall back on. Teva will thus have no choice but to maintain at least some detailing of Copaxone in the US market to soften the financial blow from genericization.

[DewDiligence]

Thanks for the link to the medpage AAN articles—there’s some good reading there.

[jq1234]

Craig Wheeler summarized MS market quite well in today's earning call:

Ahmee Fahdia—UBS

You mean that the well established position in the market [i.e. Copaxone] will weigh much more than the fact that there will be an oral or an alternative in the market?

Craig Wheeler


I think it’s going to come down to specifically what the data on each of them are and the experience that the clinicians have prescribing it. Copaxone has the advantage of having relatively few side effects compared to, for example, the interferons which are out there. I think it’s a pretty clean agent and it works well for many, many MS patients. The orals that they’ve developed will be better understood as they get into larger and larger patient populations and ultimately it remains to be seen how those therapies evolve. In the MS marketplace, typically, the competition is on the end of new patients versus old patients. Patients that are doing well in therapies are pretty hesitant to switch the therapies in the position as well that the disease will stop progressing so it’s an evolving marketplace. It’s not something that switches dramatically as soon as a new product launches into it.