Vertex Tops Merck in Early Hep C Drug Launch

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Anonymous

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Title takent from Headline from "The Street" .... mmmmm, think it could be the lack of "Trust & Value".... Vioxx, Vytorin, Zetia, Fosomax (fractures).... Yeah, I'll get right on prescribing that new Hep C drug from Mother.... Not!!!
 












Anonymous said:
Title takent from Headline from "The Street" .... mmmmm, think it could be the lack of "Trust & Value".... Vioxx, Vytorin, Zetia, Fosomax (fractures).... Yeah, I'll get right on prescribing that new Hep C drug from Mother.... Not!!!
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So far, things are playing out exactly as analysts expected/ 75% Vertex, 25% Merck. Hate to say I told you so!
 












Anonymous said:
yeah but I LOVE to say it - I told you so!
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That is bad news. How can they be ahead when we had it out first for a week? I thought that would give us an advantage. I remember coming home and they had a commercial about the Vertex drug. Why did we not do anything like that? They are so much smaller than us.
 






Karma? I don't know what it is, but way to go Matt Emmens in showing up your former employer. Of course, you were at Merck back in those "most admired corporation" days. Eventually Merck let you get away and Merck has not been "most admired" since you left. Do you suppose there could be a connection? Certainly the a-holes left at Merck now would never admit it, ever if there was the remotest chance of one. It will take someone of Emmens caliber for Merck to survive without eventually becoming someone else's takeover prospect. As for now, looks like the trust and value thingy is having as much impact as the fed's qe program.
 






I find it hard to believe Merck's extensive and exhaustive pre-launch and launch activities are not dominating lowly Vertex. What is it people? I sense the need for PIP's. That will improve Merck rep morale better than anything, right? Woe to you Merck reps. You just don't seem to be able to succeed at much lately. Targeting I tell you. Targeting. That is your key to any new product launch. I think. Not. But let's avoid that elephant.
 


















Looks like the Merck stretch target might be 35-40% - and not 50% as some have guessed. If the market share after 6 months is under 25% it will be regarded as a failure for Merck by any measure. Sorry to see that the early numbers are bumping along right about there. Early numbers do matter because of the number of HCV patients that have been warehoused awaiting approval of either one of these medicines. The HCV community shares a lot in common with the AIDS community and word of mouth will matter. These compounds both probably only have 5-year lifetimes because of the expected evolution in this therapeutic area. It would be interesting to see what the Pegasys versus PegIntron numbers are. Does having Roche involved matter? Will the numbers change as a history of side effects develops?
 






Heads will roll if Merck doesn't exceed Wall Street expectations for this side-by-side launch. Boceprevir is a major brick in the wall of Merck's future profitability and its prersent reputation. Imagine this, if Victrelis turns out to be only a so-so drug, the only apparent benefit that Merck would have achieved from spending 44 billion on S-P will have been to acquire a pool of employees to fire. How sad is that?
 






What is sad is that management will refuse to acknowledge that the problems are internal within this messed up organization. The company is just too big and crippled by it's own size. not to mention that reps make 30-40 percent less and are required to put up w more BS than u could ever imagine.
 






Anonymous said:
What is sad is that management will refuse to acknowledge that the problems are internal within this messed up organization. The company is just too big and crippled by it's own size. not to mention that reps make 30-40 percent less and are required to put up w more BS than u could ever imagine.
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It will get smaller in every possible way.
 






Anonymous said:
What is sad is that management will refuse to acknowledge that the problems are internal within this messed up organization. The company is just too big and crippled by it's own size. not to mention that reps make 30-40 percent less and are required to put up w more BS than u could ever imagine.
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I retired after 30 years in 98 and I thought things were getting to be rather bizarre and unbelievable then. I'm sure there is no way I could do a rep's job now as it probably resembles very little from 98 and I thought things were pretty bad then. Incredibly sad is probably the best way to describe things now.
 












Anonymous said:
That is bad news. How can they be ahead when we had it out first for a week? I thought that would give us an advantage. I remember coming home and they had a commercial about the Vertex drug. Why did we not do anything like that? They are so much smaller than us.
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Merck = lower SVR, longer treatment duration, complicated PI

Neither commercials nor reps will help. There is a reason that ALL analysts expected merck to get no more than 25%
 






Anonymous said:
Looks like the Merck stretch target might be 35-40% - and not 50% as some have guessed. If the market share after 6 months is under 25% it will be regarded as a failure for Merck by any measure. Sorry to see that the early numbers are bumping along right about there. Early numbers do matter because of the number of HCV patients that have been warehoused awaiting approval of either one of these medicines. The HCV community shares a lot in common with the AIDS community and word of mouth will matter. These compounds both probably only have 5-year lifetimes because of the expected evolution in this therapeutic area. It would be interesting to see what the Pegasys versus PegIntron numbers are. Does having Roche involved matter? Will the numbers change as a history of side effects develops?
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Roche reps get paid nothing on bocep sales, only message recall. We will not put our credibility on the line by aggressively promoting this drug. In fact most of us mention the vertex drug as well. The only difference is that vertex doesn't pay. Most of us want to collaborate with both merck and vertex, in our offices.
 






Anonymous said:
What bothers me the most are the pathetically low numbers of RX, both Merck and Vertex. We've been reading for years about the "warehoused" patients. Where are they?
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Youre only looking at five weeks. It is likely that week 5 Rx are much higher that week 1. You also have issues of coverage etc, that will work out as time goes on. If you expected to see lines outside the docs office, you were unrealistic. The patients will come, and we WILL get our 25%.
 






Anonymous said:
Youre only looking at five weeks. It is likely that week 5 Rx are much higher that week 1. You also have issues of coverage etc, that will work out as time goes on. If you expected to see lines outside the docs office, you were unrealistic. The patients will come, and we WILL get our 25%.
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How pathetic.
 






25% will be a peak of around 1 billion. Not too shabby. But the peak will not be long-lived as most therapies go, Vertex' peak will likely be much higher, and Vertex' margin is likely to be substantially higher. All in all, not a savior of the Merck. If boceprevir were part of a collection of such hits (think the alleged pipeline that Fred sold) that would be different. Agree with pathetic. Numbers on Peg Intron would show something interesting as well, I'm sure. Sales of this have not been strong relative to Pegasys for years.
 






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