Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13156

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Todd S.
Industry Insider: Schering pushes Zetia, Vytorin
The Star Ledger 2008 Mar 13
http://www.nj.com/business/ledger/index.ssf?/base/business-1/120538672897880.xml&coll=1

Full text:

How do you solve a problem? Maybe the answer is to throw some money at it.

That seems to be the approach Kenilworth-based Schering-Plough is taking to help stop plunging Zetia prescriptions. Total scripts have fallen 3.8 percent, compared with the same period a year ago, and they’re down 17 percent, compared with late last year, according to Deutsche Bank analyst Barbara Ryan.

The drop stems from the controversial Enhance trial, which found cholesterol pill Vytorin failed to have any benefit over the much cheaper Zocor in reducing plaque in the carotid artery, but showed a statistically insignificant buildup, although Vytorin did a better job of lowering low-density lipoprotein. The results created a debate about the merits of using Vytorin, which combines Schering-Plough’s Zetia and Merck’s Zocor.

To cope, Schering has created a “49 plan,” according to sources who contacted Pharmalot, a blog owned by The Star-Ledger. For 49 days, the drugmaker’s sales reps are supposed to schmooze doctors — preferably over lunch or dinner — in hopes of convincing them Zetia is worth prescribing.

Over at the blog CafePharma, some reps don’t think it will work, writing, “This is another version of increasing share of voice in hopes of increasing prescriptions. Right from the 1990s Big Pharma Playbook. The theory is that if we pound the message enough, doctors will write.”

A Schering-Plough spokesman said the drugmaker “has a number of ongoing sales force programs in place to help representatives correct misimpressions and mischaracterizations of Zetia and Vytorin recently presented in the media. While it is Schering-Plough policy not to discuss the details of its specific marketing programs, all Schering-Plough programs are in strict compliance with PhRMA guidelines.”

— Ed Silverman

Memory sheds workers

Memory Pharmaceuticals yesterday said it was cutting its staff 20 percent and narrowing its focus to four drug-development programs.
Shares of the Montvale drug company have been hurting since its Alzheimer’s disease treatment MEM-1003 failed in an early clinical trial last October. Memory has shelved further activity on the drug, aside from a final analysis of the failed trial results, but executives said they may try to license it to another pharmaceutical company.

On a conference call for investors, Chief Executive Vaughn Kailian said the company had cut 11 jobs, primarily in research, and now has 55 employees. Of that number, some 28 researchers remain, but Memory is shifting its focus primarily to clinical development, Kailian said.

“We can ramp up our research effort in the future as needed,” he said.

The company now says it will concentrate on two families of compounds it owns, as well as two drug programs that are joint projects with larger partners.

The four categories are: HT6 antagonists, a potential class of treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder and obesity; PDE4 inhibitors, which could treat an array of central nervous system disorders and inflammatory diseases; a nicotinic alpha-7 receptor agonist, a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s and possibly schizophrenia that is being developed with Roche; and a PDE10 inhibitor for neurological and psychiatric disorders that is a project with Amgen.

— Jeff May

Wyeth plans China plant

Wyeth is digging deeper into China.
The drugmaker plans to spend $280 million to build a third manufacturing plant capable of producing powder infant formula and other nutritional products for the booming Chinese market.

The plant, which will be built in China’s Jiangsu Province, will be the largest factory in the world devoted to manufacturing nutritional products. Wyeth does not plan to export products made in the new plant to the United States or other markets, according to spokesman Kevin Wiggins.

The plant construction announcement came as another drugmaker, Baxter Healthcare, recalled batches of its blood-thinning medicine heparin, made with ingredients supplied by a Chinese company. In the United States, 19 patients died after using the drug, which was found to contain an unidentified contaminant.

Wiggins said the proposed factory will contain the same standards and require the same quality checks whether the products are sold domestically in China or worldwide.

Madison-based Wyeth sees the potential of capturing a bigger piece of China’s huge market for nutritionals. The market is estimated to be worth $3 billion, according to the latest data released by Neilsen’s market research.

“This investment reflects Wyeth’s long-term commitment to pediatric research, as well as the recognition that China is now the fastest-growing market for Wyeth’s nutritional business,” said Robert Essner, the company’s chairman.