All,
Graet news about intron-A. Analysts will have to increase their estimates. Most analysts have modest expectation from it. For example, lehman expects BGEN royalty is 175M in 1999 (200M in year 2000), only slightly up from 1998 (royalty for Q2 is over 42M).
Here is the press release.
NEW YORK, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Schering-Plough Corp (NYSE:SGP - news) Chief Executive Richard Kogan said Wednesday that sales of Intron A had risen significantly since the recent launch of a new combination therapy for hepatitis C that includes the antiviral drug.
In June Schering-Plough launched Rebetron, a combination therapy that includes in the same package a dose of its injectable Intron A and a pill form of the antiviral drug ribavirin licensed from ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NYSE:ICN - news).
Intron A, a recombinant form of alpha-2b interferon, garnered worldwide sales in 1997 of $598 million, making it the second-biggest-selling prescription drug for the Madison, N.J. company.
''The increase in Intron A sales is significant,'' Kogan said, attributing it largely to the Rebetron launch. ''And I think the increase is significant because there is a significant improvement in efficacy when using Intron A together with ribavirin.''
He declined to specify how much Intron A sales had risen.
Schering-Plough earlier Wednesday announced that Kogan, 57, had been elected to the additional post of chairman of its board of directors, effective November 1, succeeding Robert Luciano.
Luciano is retiring after 20 years with the company, one year before reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65. He will remain on the board.
The company also said it would split its shares two-for-one on December 2 and reiterated its previous forecast that 1998 per-share earnings would grow by about 20 percent.
Longer-term, Kogan told Reuters earnings would continue to grow through expanded uses of Intron A and continued success of the company's blockbuster Claritin line of nonsedating antihistamines, which had 1997 worldwide sales of $1.7 billion.
''But it will go well beyond those drugs,'' Kogan added, saying Schering-Plough's pipeline was full of promising new compounds.
He said one of them, Tenovil (interleukin-10), was in Phase III trials for Crohn's disease.
''All the studies have not been done, but I think we will find that Tenovil will treat mild to moderate forms of the disease,'' he said.
Kogan noted that Schering-Plough has international marketing rights to another Crohn's disease drug, developed by Centocor Inc. (Nasdaq:CNTO - news), called Remicade (infliximab).
He said Remicade, a monoclonal antibody approved in August by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, was indicated for more-serious Crohn's disease patients and was thus unlikely to pose a great competitive threat to Tenovil.
Crohn's disease is an inflamatory bowel disease.
Kogan said he was also hopeful about the future for Temodal, a chemotherapy agent now awaiting approval from the FDA for treatment of brain tumors and malignant melanoma. It is in early-phase U.S. studies for a variety of solid tumors.
He said the earnings outlook was also brightened by Vasomax, an anti-impotence pill that Schering-Plough will market for Zonagen Inc. (Nasdaq:ZONA - news).
Previously, analysts have said Vasomax is less effective than Pfizer Inc's (NYSE:PFE - news) blockbuster anti-impotence pill Viagra launched earlier this year, but could achieve decent sales, in part, because of possibly milder side effects for patients with cardiovascular problems.
Kogan said he also had high expectations for a pill now in Phase II trials that blocks absorption of dietary cholesterol into the bloodstream.
''It will probably compete with statins and work with statins,'' Kogan said, referring to the class of anti-cholesterol drugs now most commonly prescribed -- which includes Warner-Lambert Co.'s (NYSE:WLA - news) Lipitor and Merck & Co.'s (NYSE:MRK - news) Zocor.
Kogan expressed confidence that Asmanex, an oral inhaler steroid for asthma, now in Phase III trials, would be a worthy successor to Vanceril -- a Schering-Plough steroid for asthma that had 1997 sales of $179 million and loses U.S. patent protection in late 1999.
Kogan added that the company had no plans to make either Vanceril or Schering-Plough's off-patent asthma drug, Proventil (albuterol), over the counter drugs, saying he believed asthma medications should only be used with physician supervision.
James Keeney, ABN-AMRO drug analyst, said the news of Robert Luciano's retirement and Kogan's new duties as chairman were no surprise because of Schering-Plough's mandatory retirement policy.
He predicted Intron A sales would rise to $715 million in 1998, a 20 percent increase from 1997 sales.
Keeney said Vasomax had the potential of realizing sales of $40 million in 1999, growing to $200 million several years later.
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