Poor AstraZeneca! It appears to be a company looking for a way forward. It has just two products in Phase III, a stroke drug called Cerovive and a diabetes/lipids treatment called Galida, each with huge risks attached.
Stroke is the "graveyard of drug development" and a competitor to Galida, BMS/Mercks' Pargluva, has just hit the skids with the FDA in a very bad way.
Insider is sceptical about AZs' prospects as it remains unclear whether there are any potential blockbusters lurking in the portfolio of Phase II drugs. There has be if the shares are to close the gap on UK rival GlaxoSmithKline, which has twice as large a portfolio.
Cost-cutting and good third quarter sales of Seroquel and Nexium (both of which have their ongoing challenges) can only take AZ so far, particularly since changes to the way drugs are purchased in the US are likely to exert yet more downward pressure on prices in the coming years.
Crestor is a dog; stuck at 6% market share.
So, AZ. Quo vadis?
Sources: Independent, Telegraph
3 comments:
Is Crestor a dog? Or would there have been a different end to the story if another company had launched it? What if Pfizer's marketing machine had rosuvastatin? Or Merck with their long history of selling Zocor?
Good point. AZ hired ex-Pfizer marketeers to oversee its end development.
They were key to the "high potency - high efficacy" strategy.
Unfortunately they were blindsided by the safety issues. Withdrawal of the 80mg dose pre-launch also reinforced that there may be a problem.
When Public Citizen weighed in it all went wrong very quickly. The hard question is why AZ didn't sue PC.
The answer might be that AZ did not want to have to disclose all their data as part of the suit.
Owwww. That would explain A LOT. Do you think things would have been different if the 80 had not been part of the submission? Or if the ex-Pfizer AZ hirees had more marketing experience? I'm curious as to why you think they were blind-sided when they had access to all their data AND we can assume they ran wargame scenarios prior to developing the final launch strategy. Also, shouldn't the Baycol withdrawal have triggered reassessment of plans?
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