This is par for the course for NVS. Let's put the wrong people in charge of a new drug launch. In the military it's called a "SNAFU":
Novartis heart failure med Entresto, which got a slow start after launching to multibillion-dollar sales expectations, would have seen faster uptake, company executives figure—if only it had been an oncology treatment.
When the drug rolled out, Novartis had oncology professionals running its primary care business—and when they saw Entresto’s 20% reduction in CV death, “there was a belief that ‘the data will sell the drug’, and the payers will come,” Bernstein’s Tim Anderson wrote in a note to clients, paraphrasing Q&A responses from outgoing CEO Joe Jimenez and incoming chief Vas Narasimhan. “In oncology, it
would be like this,” they added.
Instead, Novartis came up against resistance from cardiologists unaccustomed to new drugs in the setting and payers who, fearing a big financial hit from rapid Entresto growth, “put in place every roadblock they could.”
These days, the drug is
selling better; clinical
guideline decisions from the American College of Cardiology earlier this year went in Novartis’ favor, helping the company knock aside payer restrictions. And, in turn, total U.S. prescriptions have accelerated, Anderson wrote.
But the drugmaker still took away some key lessons that it intends to apply to future launches. “We are reminded to target the population with biomarkers … to pare down to a subgroup enjoying high efficacy that payers will have to grant access. And if not—we don’t launch it,” Anderson paraphrased the execs.