IMS Company Profiles - Report Buyer

IMS COM PANY PRO FILES NOVARTIS
ment re quires fre quent blood trans fu sions that can sub se quently lead to too much iron in body or gans.
How ever, the stud ies also en rolled pa tients with other trans fu sion-de pend ent anemias, in clud ing sickle
cell dis ease. With a once-daily oral dose, deferasirox is re plac ing Novartis’ older prod uct treat ment,
Desferal, which is ad min is tered via a daily subcutaneous infusion over 8-12 hours.
Exjade is now be ing stud ied in pa tients with non-transfusional-re lated iron over load. Phase I/II safety
and ef fi cacy stud ies are en roll ing pa tients, with the first data ex pected in 2008.
Com pe ti tion: In the 12-month pe riod to the end of Sep tem ber 2008, Exjade was the num ber one prod -
uct in the V3F class (Iron-che lat ing Agents), with an 85.8% mar ket share and 35% fixed rate dol lar
growth. Num ber two was the older Novartis prod uct Desferal (deferoxamine), with a 7.0% mar ket
share but sales down by 14% in fixed rate dol lar terms. In April 2008, it was re ported that Cipla (In dia)
was plan ning to launch a ge neric ver sion of Exjade on the Indian market.
Sales/An a lyst Com ment: In 2008, sales were $531 mil lion, up 45% in lo cal cur rency terms, and it was
Novartis’ num ber 11 phar ma ceu ti cal prod uct. Mor gan Stan ley an a lysts (Jan u ary 2009) fore cast sales of
$627 mil lion in 2009 ($901 mil lion by 2014). Cowen & Co an a lysts (Au gust 2008) fore cast sales of $515
mil lion in 2008 ($825 million by 2013).
Generics
Novartis is a ma jor player in the world generics mar ket via its generics di vi sion Sandoz, which ac counted
for 18.2% of to tal com pany sales in 2008. Sandoz is the world’s num ber two generics com pany and is
lead ing the in dus try in dif fi cult-to-make generics based on spe cial ized for mu la tions rang ing from trans -
derm al patches and im plants to ex tended-re lease tablets.
In 2008, Sandoz’s net sales rose 5.4% to $7.6 bil lion. Growth was driven by im proved per for mances out -
side the USA to achieve sales of $5,791 mil lion up 5% in lo cal cur rency terms. Growth was par tic u larly led
by mar kets in Cen tral and East ern Eu rope, up 13% in lo cal cur rency terms, with Rus sia the ma jor growth
mar ket. Growth was also good in Ger many, Can ada, Tur key and Brazil. There was how ever a 10% de -
cline in the US mar ket, down to $1,766 mil lion, due to a lack of new prod uct launches in 2008. Mor gan
Stan ley an a lysts (Jan u ary 2009) ex pect Sandoz sales to grow strongly to $7,820 mil lion in 2009 then up
to $9,906 million in 2014.
The US ac counted for 23% of Sandoz net sales in 2008, down from 27% in 2007. There was a lack of ma -
jor launches in 2008, but re cent key launches in that coun try have in cluded the an ti bi otic cefdinir (ge neric
ver sion of Abbott’s Omnicef), one of the most widely pre scribed cephalosporin an ti bi ot ics in the US; ad -
di tional dos ages of metoprolol succinate (AstraZeneca’s Toprol-XL), a drug used to treat high blood
pres sure and heart fail ure, in a state-of-the art sus tained-re lease for mu la tion; and ipratropium albuterol
(Boehringer Ingelheim’s Combivent), a med i cine used to treat re spi ra tory dis or ders, an im por tant stra -
te gic mile stone for Sandoz be cause treat ments for re spi ra tory dis eases rep re sent a ma jor growth ini tia -
tive. Growth in the US was also driven by the launch of au tho rized generics that in clude amlodipine +
benazepril com bi na tion (Novartis’ own Lotrel) and ondansetron (GSK’s Zofran). In Eu rope, Sandoz
launched leuprorelin, a treat ment for pros tate can cer, in an im plant formulation injected into the
abdominal skin of patients.
Also sup port ing growth were the Hexal and Eon Labs ac qui si tions. These com pa nies were bought by
Novartis in 2005 for ap prox i mately $8 bil lion. The trans ac tion brought to Novartis Hexal’s mar ket lead er -
ship in Ger many and Eon Labs’ strong po si tion in the US for dif fi cult-to-make generics. The ac qui si tions
sig nif i cantly strength ened Sandoz’ tech nol ogy base and ex panded the al ready strong ca pa bil i ties in phar -
ma ceu ti cal, biopharmaceuticals and anti-infectives.
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