Healthy Skepticism Library item: 3674

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

Kang P.
Forest Labs' Mylan Deal Alleviates Pipeline Concerns
Forbes.com 2006 Jan 12
http://www.forbes.com/technology/sciences/2006/01/12/forest-labs-mylan-nebivolol-0112markets03.html

Notes:

Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:

“This deal goes a long way in alleviating our pipeline concerns for Forest,”

These days, it’s all about ‘pipelines’.
Old drugs lose their patent protection with time and hence become less profitable, so what new drugs are in the pipeline?

Sadly, they are few and far between.

We need a new hypertension-treating drug like a hole in the head.
Can’t the billions of dollars spent on research come up with something more useful than this?

Full text:

Market Scan
Forest Labs’ Mylan Deal Alleviates Pipeline Concerns
Peter Kang, 01.12.06, 11:13

UBS Investment Research maintained a “neutral” rating on Forest Laboratories (nyse: FRX – news – people ) after the drug company announced an alliance with Mylan Laboratories (nyse: MYL – news – people ) for the experimental heart drug Nebivolol.

The agreement calls for Forest to make a $75 million upfront payment to Mylan, with potential milestone payments, and Mylan is also entitled to sales-based royalties from the drug.

“This deal goes a long way in alleviating our pipeline concerns for Forest,” wrote analyst Dimi Ntantoulis in a client note.

“We view this as a good deal for both companies, as Forest now has partially filled in the gap in its pipeline for new product launches and Mylan has found an excellent partner to market Nebivolol.”

The analyst raised the price target on Forest to $42 from $40.50.

Ntantoulis said the deal could bring Forest $82.5 million in revenue in fiscal 2008, or an earnings-per-share increase of 6 cents.

The UBS analyst expects the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve Nebivolol for the treatment of hypertension by late 2006.