Cor Thera CEO:Future Mkt For Anticlotting Drugs At $1.5B
By BETH M. MANTZ
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
NEW YORK -- Recent studies presented at the American Heart
Association, together with American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology guidelines, suggest that physicians and cardiologists should follow a course of aggressive therapy using IIb/IIIa inhibitors when patients present symptoms in the emergency room.
Boosted by such support, this class of drugs is likely to exceed $500 million in sales this year and have long-term market potential of more than $1.5 billion, said Cor Therapeutics Inc. (CORR) Chief Executive Vaughn Kailian at the Robertson Stephens Medical Conference.
Cor wants to make sure that its IIb/IIIa inhibitor Integrilin grabs more market share among patients undergoing interventional cardiology procedures, as well as getting the patients before such procedures are necessary.
"The fundamental challenge is to make sure that everybody gets treated as soon as possible," Kailian told Dow Jones Newswires.
In March, investigators presented data indicating that Integrilin significantly reduced the combined incidence of death, heart attack, need for urgent repeat intervention or the need for thrombolitic bail-out therapy over the 48 hours following balloon angioplasty combined with a stent.
Since that data was announced, sales of Integrilin grew quarter over quarter, filling the coffers of Cor and its marketing partner Schering-Plough Corp. (SGP), as more physicians prescribed the IIb/IIIa inhibitor for their patients.
At the time of the announcement, rival ReoPro from Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) had the largest market share, but because ReoPro was priced at $1,350, physicians began to prefer Integrilin with its price tag of $450 a dose. Integrilin took over the slot as market leader.
Research has been undertaken to evaluate early aggressive treatment to see if intermediate-risk and high-risk patients would benefit from early prescriptions of IIb/IIIa inhibitors. Merck & Co.'s (MRK) TACTICS study of its drug Aggrastat answered this question with a resounding yes. The data was presented at the mid-November meeting of the American Heart Association.
"If you treat patients before the cath lab (cardiac catheterization lab), you reduce the risk of mortality," said Kailian.
If physicians observe the study and heed the guidelines from the cardiologists' association, Integrilin should benefit.
The percentage of patients who receive Integrilin in the cath lab should dwindle to below 20% from the current 40% level, said Kailian. Yet he sees an increase in the number of patients who will be injected with the anticlotting agent because the drug would be getting to patients earlier, thus prolonging their duration of therapy.
As the cardiovascular-focused company celebrates Integrilin and educates its joint sales force with Schering-Plough to make sure early treatment is the standard course of treatment in hospitals, Cor is also preparing its pipeline.
One of the more advanced candidates is Cromafiban, an oral IIb/IIIa inhibitor, which is in Phase II clinical trials.
Kailian said the drug shouldn't cannibalize Integrilin sales because the drug is for patients who are released from the hospital.
Other companies have tried to develop oral IIb/IIIa inhibitors and failed. Kailian said the problems may have been related to the previous drugs' high peak-to-trough ratio, indicating that the ratio of the glycoprotein in the blood was almost double its concentration from the time right before the drug was administered to when it is active. As a result, there was great risk that clots could form.
Kailian said Cromafiban seems to demonstrate a smoother peak-to-trough ratio, reducing the risk of causing clots.
Additionally, the drug has an 18-hour to 20-hour half life, allowing the treatment to be administered once a day. As a result, compliance is improved.
Kailian said the company hasn't decided whether it will try to replicate a promotion and marketing relationship with another company on Cromafiban.
It depends on the finance package, he added. |
