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Biotech / Medical : Pharma News Only (pfe,mrk,wla, sgp, ahp, bmy, lly) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Anthony Wong who wrote (1424)	2/12/1999 5:08:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1722

02/12 15:00 INTERVIEW-Celebrex prescriptions gain momentum By Susan Nadeau CHICAGO, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Monsanto Co.'s <MTC.N> G.D. Searle and Co. pharmaceutical unit said Friday that it expects its new arthritis pain drug Celebrex to generate more than 100,000 new prescriptions in its fourth week on the market. In an interview, Searle's chief operating officer, Al Heller, said the drug, which has had the second-fastest start of any new drug, is gaining on the leader, Pfizer Inc.'s blockbuster impotency drug Viagra. Searle is co-marketing Celebrex with Pfizer <PFE.N>. "The numbers suggest we'll have a week of over 100,000 new prescriptions," Heller said. "Our expectation is we should continue to see this rise in new prescriptions for an extended period of time." According to a report by pharmaceutical information provider NDC Health Information Services, from Saturday to Tuesday of this week, Celebrex's fourth full week in the market, the drug generated more than 45,500 prescriptions nationwide. For the full week ended Feb. 5, Celebrex's third week on the market, there were more than 80,500 Celebrex prescriptions, and in the first three weeks that number totaled more than 132,000, NDC estimated. Celebrex is the first of a new class of Cox-2 inhibitors to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It was designed to treat pain and arthritis without causing the serious gastrointestinal side effects often seen in drugs such as aspirin and ibuprofen. Cox-2 drugs inhibit the Cox-2 enzyme that triggers pain, but not the Cox-1 enzyme that protects the lining of the stomach. Searle has said more than 107,000 Americans are hospitalized each year from stomach ulcers and other complications, and as many as 16,500 people die. Stephen Scala, an analyst with Cowen & Co., said Celebrex prescriptions will likely beat his first-month estimates. "It's off to a very, very good start, which we anticipated," Scala said. Doctors are prescribing the drug even before Searle's main marketing push, Heller said. Next week the company will hold a meeting to brief its sales representatives on the drug. The official marketing campaign will kick off on Feb. 22. A question remaining, however, is whether insurance and managed care companies will agree to pay for Celebrex. At an average cost of $2.42 a day, Celebrex is comparable in price to other brand-name arthritis treatments, but much cheaper generic treatments are available. At this point, Heller said, some smaller organizations and hospitals have agreed to cover Celebrex, and no major organizations have outright denied it. The process of gaining coverage of a drug can take 60 to 120 days, he said, and Searle expects answers from the major players in 30 to 60 days. Heller said Celebrex is expected to save insurers money currently spent on anti-ulcer drugs, as well as doctor and emergency room visits and hospital stays. "There's a real pharmaco-economic story to be told here," he said, adding that outside data has shown "this drug is not only therapeutically advantageous but also economically advantageous." Heller said Searle intends to launch direct-to-consumer advertising of Celebrex, but declined to give details. Shares of Monsanto were off 19 cents, at $47.375.