Monsanto Celebrex Prescriptions Exceed 400,000, NDC Says
Bloomberg News
February 23, 1999, 1:03 p.m. ET
Monsanto Celebrex Prescriptions Exceed 400,000, NDC Says
St. Louis, Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Monsanto Co.'s new
arthritis drug Celebrex had 409,000 prescriptions filled in its
first five weeks on the market, NDC Health Information Services
said, as people looked for a painkiller that's easier on the
stomach than older medicines such as ibuprofen.
Celebrex sales reached almost 155,000 in the week ended
Sunday, according to NDC Health, a unit of Atlanta-based NDC
Corp. That's a 35 percent increase over the previous week's
115,000 prescriptions, NDC said.
The success of Celebrex's early U.S. introduction is second
only to that of Pfizer Inc.'s Viagra, introduced last year, NDC
said. In its fifth week on the market, Viagra had 310,000
prescriptions. The drug now has about 150,000 prescriptions a
week, NDC said.
Celebrex's success may change the way people see Monsanto, a
company once better known for the artificial sweetener NutraSweet
and the herbicide Roundup than for its drugs.
Monsanto fell 1 5/16 to 46 3/4 in early afternoon trading.
Shares of the St. Louis-based company rose 2 11/16 to 48 1/16
yesterday after Richard De Schutter, chief executive of
Monsanto's Searle unit, told CNBC that prescriptions for the drug
had already topped 350,000.
Celebrex is the first of a new class of painkillers, the so-
called Cox-2 drugs. These medicines appear to be gentler on the
stomach because they target an enzyme linked to pain and
inflammation more precisely than do older medicines. The older
drugs seem to hit a related enzyme and as a result, long-term use
of some painkillers can lead to ulcers or stomach bleeding.
NDC Health said it estimates the sales by polling several
thousand U.S. pharmacies and then projecting what the national
sales are.
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