Launch Excellence in the Diabetes Market: Lessons from - IMS Health

WHITE PAPER | DIABETES LAUNCH EXCELLENCE
FIXED-DOSE COMBINATIONS: A SECOND CHANCE TO BE FIRST
Whilst it has been standard for plain oral agents to be followed by their combination
with metformin, for TZDs these products were very much second brands. With the
gliptins, the launch of the combination has been an opportunity to gain competitive
advantage.
In the major European markets, Novartis launched its combination product, Eucreas ®
(vildagliptin/metformin), concurrently with its plain product, Galvus. So, while
Galvus was the second-to-market plain product, Eucreas was the first launched
combination DPP-IV product. (See Fig. 1).
FIGURE 1: LAUNCH OF FIRST COMBINATION DPP-IVs IN THE EU
2008 2009 2010
Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar
Eucreas launched 2 yrs ahead of Janumet in UK
In contrast, Merck delayed launching its fixed-dose combination product, Janumet®
(sitagliptin/metformin) until a year after Januvia, its single-compound product, was
on the market. This meant that Janumet was the second-to-market combination
product. In fact, it lagged behind Eucreas by a full two years in the U.K.
Uptake of Eucreas did not match that of Janumet across the top five European
countries—likely because Janumet benefited from Januvia’s established patient base.
(See Fig. 2.) However, within Novartis’s product family, Eucreas performed
significantly better than Galvus in most European markets. This is most apparent in
Spain where in 2011, Eucreas and Galvus accounted for 34 percent and 3 percent of
the DPP-IV inhibitor market, respectively. Sales for Eucreas amounted to 83% of
Janumet sales, far exceeding Galvus’ performance. The lesson here is that it might
well be worthwhile to give as much—if not greater—focus to the launch of the
combination product as to the launch of the plain product.
IMS HEALTH | LAUNCH EXCELLENCE IN THE DIABETES MARKET 4