Torcetrapib to be sold by itself
Pfizer has wisely decided to sell torcetrapib by itself instead of combining it with Lipitor alone. There is a market for this, and I think Pfizer has made a wise decision in deciding to do this.
By offering torcetrapib only in a combination pill, Pfizer would have forced patients taking other statins — like Zocor, from Merck — to switch to Lipitor if they wanted torcetrapib’s benefits.
In an interview last year, Dr. John L. LaMattina, Pfizer’s top scientist, defended the company’s plans, saying that the costs of testing torcetrapib alongside every statin would be prohibitive. Already, Pfizer says it is spending $800 million to develop torcetrapib. Pfizer is the world’s largest drug maker, with sales of $51 billion and a profit of $8 billion last year.
The whole testing issue is nothing but smoke in mirrors; it is likely the government will study the effects of torcetrapib in combination with other statin therapies because there will be demand for it, and because it's interesting and potentially clinically significant. So that angle will resolve itself despite Pfizer's claims to the contrary.
Pfizer could also partner with someone like AstraZeneca to allow them to combine torcetrapib with Crestor the way Schering-Plough got together with Merck and combined Zocor and Zetia to make Vytorin. This would seem somewhat counterproductive for Pfizer, though, because Lipitor has patent protection through 2011. Schering-Plough had no statin product which they could combine with Zetia, so the circumstances were somewhat different.
It'll be interesting to see what really happens, but I think we'll see Pfizer releasing standalone and combination therapies, and holding onto their IP rather than licensing it to a competitor. Licensing could potentially unbalance the books, and any gains that'd be made in licensing fees could be lost in the form of fewer direct sales. Hrm. I'm sure a clever economist could model that and see how it turns out based on current and projected marketshare for current statins, taking into account future patent expiry… Assuming Pfizer hasn't done that already.
[tags]Medicine, pharmacy, Pfizer, torcetrapib, Lipitor, cholesterol, heart disease[/tags]
No Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
| TrackBack URI
You can also bookmark
this on del.icio.us or check the cosmos