To Lou, Smo and HR

Anonymous

Guest
Read the following and you all should feel shame for how you treated the sales team....the way you all pointed fingers and placed blame for Krystexxa not reaching it's inflated expectations.

You are not leaders....you have no values.....you are all selfish and incompetant. Everyone that launched Krystexxa worked hard and you should apologize and thank us all.

At least you finally realized that the VA will never put Krystexxa on formulary ...LOL

CEO Louis Ferrari, who joined Savient in 2011 and took the CEO job in 2012, blames his predecessors for exaggerated hopes about the market potential for Krystexxa. When management announced the failure of its effort to sell the company in 2010, it spoke of a market of 170 thousand refractory chronic gout patients; a subsequent market study in 2011 suggested the population was only 120 thousand. That didn't stop former CEO James Johnson from telling an audience at the JP Morgan Chase Healthcare Conference in 2012 about "patients in the neighborhood of 500 thousand to 700 thousand" with severe (though not yet refractory) gout, whom he suggested were prospective candidates for treatment with Krystexxa.

Optimism proved pernicious for Savient. As a result, says Ferrari, "The drug was priced at a level thinking the market was much bigger and actually the market is not. The research showed the market to be 120 thousand patients for refractory chronic gout, but I believe the market is much less than even that." Because treatment with Krystexxa requires a series of infusions, patients tend to give more conventional oral therapies every chance before resorting to Krystexxa. Then, when they do turn to Krystexxa, they don't take it for long. Those who respond get the benefit of the drug, and stop taking it more quickly than expected. The clinical trials used a six-month administration period for Krystexxa, with patients using about one vial every two weeks. "We are seeing in practice the total number of months a patient remains on the drug is for less than six months," Ferrari says. A further complication - some patients react to the infusion with anaphylaxis, others develop antibody responses that render the drug ineffective.

After taking the helm as CEO, Ferrari cut the company's sales force by about 35%, but price increases are the focus of the company's strategy. He has raised the price about two-thirds, to $3,850 per vial, has encountered no resistance from payers, and says there is ample room to increase the price further, explaining, "If you look at the orphan drug market, whether an infusible, injectable or oral product, they are all much, much higher priced than we are." He refused to specify a target price.

There have been some positive recent developments for Savient. In January, Krystexxa received approval from European regulators - and in February, Savient announced a deal with Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB (aka Sobi) to co-promote the orphan rheumatoid arthritis drug, kineret, in the U.S. Ferrari says that he is considering "a number of companies" as potential partners to market Krystexxa in Europe.

A William Blair & Company LLC analysis estimated a $530 million NPV for Krystexxa, based on the price going to $5,180 per vial (Ferrari did not confirm this estimate). EvaluatePharma, which aggregates analyst estimates, gives a Krystexxa NPV of about $279 million. But either number is still comfortably above Savient's current enterprise value of $167 million. Sooner or later, an acquirer should notice the money on the table.
 


















Unfortunately the only ones making money on SVNT are teh Board and senior management. They should go to jail for the false hopes.

Oh Yeah they are really raking in the money. This was in the news:

"President and CEO of Savient Pharmaceuticals (SVNT) Louis Ferrari sells 950 shares of SVNT on 11/26/2012 at an average price of $1.16 a share."

That is over a thousand dollars, before taxes.
 






Add his salary to that and it comes out to $601,000 ...... not bad for a Brooklyn Gangsta CEO

Don;t fool yourselves though ..... there is a platinum parachute waiting
 






Lou stated other orphan drugs are charging much much higher prices than Krystexxa is...that's because the other drugs are saving people's lives you stupid ass. Krystexxa is not saving jack shit, only putting people at risk; at least 40%, for anaphylaxis!! Your KILLING patients LOU!
 






Lou stated other orphan drugs are charging much much higher prices than Krystexxa is...that's because the other drugs are saving people's lives you stupid ass. Krystexxa is not saving jack shit, only putting people at risk; at least 40%, for anaphylaxis!! Your KILLING patients LOU!

his strategy is to increase price gradually to cover for a 2 week regimen instead of 6 months. Then, price in some reserve to allow for the discontinues. It's still an orphan drug, and it is still a very small market BUT all potential K patients should have access to it. Even at 6k for one dose, that would cost a payer less than a 6 month dosing regimen under the original launch pricing. For the folks it works in, K really is a great drug, but 6 months of dosing is not needed. 6 months of followup? Yes.
 






his strategy is to increase price gradually to cover for a 2 week regimen instead of 6 months. Then, price in some reserve to allow for the discontinues. It's still an orphan drug, and it is still a very small market BUT all potential K patients should have access to it. Even at 6k for one dose, that would cost a payer less than a 6 month dosing regimen under the original launch pricing. For the folks it works in, K really is a great drug, but 6 months of dosing is not needed. 6 months of followup? Yes.

So now the strategy is a single dose? The product insert suggests that serum drug levels go up concomitant with a single dose. What happens to serum uric acid levels, how much do they go down?
 






So now the strategy is a single dose? The product insert suggests that serum drug levels go up concomitant with a single dose. What happens to serum uric acid levels, how much do they go down?

Serum uric acid goes down to near zero after the first dose in nearly all patients -- and stays there for two or three weeks in most. That might be good enough for resolving some millimeter size tophi, but bulky disease needs repeated infusions.
 


















Time is ticking.....

"We ended the year with $96.3 million in cash and short-term investments as compared with $116.2 million in the prior quarter, a decrease of $19.9 million, and believe that our current cash and short-term investments will be sufficient to fund anticipated levels of operations into the second quarter of 2014."
 






Wow. Five dead, 75% of the staff let go, stock price in the tank...down to a buck from 27.7.

It is a pegylated non-human protein too.

The big difference is that OMONTYS does not fill any unmet medical need -- it is just a less expensive ESA with no clinical advantage. On the other hand KRYSTEXXA can bring disabled tophaceous gout patients back into the work force, which no other drug has been shown to do. It is the risk:benefit ratio that sets KRYSTEXXA apart.
 






The big difference is that OMONTYS does not fill any unmet medical need -- it is just a less expensive ESA with no clinical advantage. On the other hand KRYSTEXXA can bring disabled tophaceous gout patients back into the work force, which no other drug has been shown to do. It is the risk:benefit ratio that sets KRYSTEXXA apart.

So all the people with red cell aplasia due to antibodies against epo don't count as an "unmet medical need"?. Nice. Too bad about the patients, reports vary from 3-5 that died. I don't think the risk with Krystexxa is as high. People do develop antibodies against the drug and PEG but there have been no deaths attributed to krystexxa.
 






So all the people with red cell aplasia due to antibodies against epo don't count as an "unmet medical need"?. Nice. Too bad about the patients, reports vary from 3-5 that died. I don't think the risk with Krystexxa is as high. People do develop antibodies against the drug and PEG but there have been no deaths attributed to krystexxa.



Not so fast. People have coded and had very bad reactions as well. This drug is a DOG and Lou knows it. He wants to inject it right in the tophi. He said that a couple weeks ago on a call. That guy has lost his mind and needs to be fired!
 






So all the people with red cell aplasia due to antibodies against epo don't count as an "unmet medical need"?. Nice. Too bad about the patients, reports vary from 3-5 that died. I don't think the risk with Krystexxa is as high. People do develop antibodies against the drug and PEG but there have been no deaths attributed to krystexxa.

Good point! The way to bring OMONTYS back to the U.S. market may be to label it only for people with EPO-induced pure red cell aplasia. There has already been a study with a dozen or so such patients and most of them benefited sufficiently from OMONTYS to avoid additional transfusions.
 






The big difference is that OMONTYS does not fill any unmet medical need -- it is just a less expensive ESA with no clinical advantage. On the other hand KRYSTEXXA can bring disabled tophaceous gout patients back into the work force, which no other drug has been shown to do. It is the risk:benefit ratio that sets KRYSTEXXA apart.

Given the minuscule number of these true RCG patients and the significant number of co-morbidities that most have, the number of them coming back to the work force is an insignificant statistic. Granted, it's great news for the individual patient, but there won't be many that fit the category you described.

K needs to be promoted as part of an overall disease management system for gout by a smart, scientific and business savvy company - SVNT is only 3 qualities away from that being them.