For archival purposes:
stockhouse.ca
SUBJECT: Sales Posted By: CaptainKlutz
Post Time: 7/30/03 21:17
« Previous Message Next Message »
Lots of speculation on Pennsaid sales in Canada. Here are some actual numbers:
Approximately 7,000 prescriptions were filled during the months of May and June. A little under 1,000 of those were refills. (Not bad on the refills considering the launch date).
7,000 represents about 1.4% of the total scripts for "propionic acid derivatives", the category that includes a lot of the older anti-inflammatory drugs such as diclofenac, ibuprofen and naproxen. Prescriptions for drugs in that category are filled approximately 4.5 million times per year (including refills).
It's about 0.3% of the total market for all anti-arthritic compounds including the Cox-II's and RA drugs. The whole category accounts for about 15 million fills each year. (Propionic derivatives are about 30% of the market, Cox-II's are about 50%).
DMX reps are doing about 3,000 details per month. That's on par with what the reps marketing the Cox-II's are doing. (Although, IMHO, it's not enough for a launch. They should have a bigger sales force).
The company is also running ads in about 13 leading medical journals at a cost of around $150,000/month. That puts Pennsaid at #5 in Canada in terms of total journal spend, right behind Celebrex and Vioxx.
These are decent numbers. Especially given the circumstances: it's a new and unconventional product; DMX is unknown, not recgonized as having any special expertise in the area; there's little patient awareness of the product; there's been no advanced hype from spillover advertising in the U.S.; there's no provincial formulary coverage; DMX is using an average sized sales force; and it's a very crowded marketplace with a lot of noise being generated by bigger pharma co.'s.
By way of comparison Mobicox, which is marketed by Boehringer Ingleheim and was the 3rd Cox-II to hit the market in Canada, had about 6,200 scripts in the first two months post launch (Nov. and Dec. of 2000). And back then Boehringer was doing about 6,000 details per month. (Likely they had a much bigger sales force). Less than 3 years later Mobicox is being dispensed 1 million times per year at an average price of about $50 per script. (What may also be interesting to some here is that Mobicox is not patented in Canada. Almost 3 years on the market and doing close to $50 million and there's still no generic.)
Bextra, Pfizer’s newest Cox-II launched in Canada in early ’03, had about 9,000 fills during the first two months of sales.
It's still early but the numbers seem to indicate a few things:
1) There is a substantial interest and willingness on the part of docs and patients to try it. And DMX is doing a decent job of getting the message out. A script per detail is not a bad ratio for the first few months.
2) The value of an approval in the U.S. is enormous. A major pharma co. could double or triple DMX's numbers just by throwing more money at the launch. And the U.S. market is about 10 times the Canadian market. You could have the U.S. docs writing 140,000 scripts in a few months. And even if sales stayed flat you'd still have 840,000 scripts in year 1. I don't think there's a pharma co. out there that would not be drooling at those numbers. (It's also hard to imagine that DMX would not be sharing Cdn. sales figures with it's potential licensee(s). The success of the launch in Canada ought)
3) The company needs a bigger sales force.
Still, it appears as though the launch has been a success. Congratulations DMX. Keep up the good work. |
