re: Erbitux
Yes, at the Minyanville site in a forum where space is limited and in the context of someone saying ImClone was an acquisition candidate at a much higher valuation.
FWIW,
It should be "declining sales growth", not "declining sales". I'm certain I wrote it that way and it was edited out, but it's my responsibility to catch errors like that so that's my bad.
2005 sales of Erbitux as reported in IMCL's 1/24 release was exactly $413.1M in the US. If Dew wants to use annualized sales that's fine, but my number is correct. Worldwide sales of the drug are higher as Dew notes. The total value to anyone who purchases IMCL is lower than either number because of the BMY deal parameters. See the comment below from the BIIB executive, for example.
As far as future growth is concerned, there is no question the drug has grown quickly in the past. Past performance is not always a predictor of future results. Erbitux posted 58% Y-o-Y growth, 4Q05 U.S. Erbitux sales +38% over 4Q04, 13% Q-o-Q. I don't believe Erbitux will be as adversely affected by p-mab as some people think, but it will have an effect. Some analysts predict a 1:1 transfer of sales to p-mab.
If you talk to docs at conferences, all they can talk about is the rash and how badly the patients hate it. Most of the docs who say rash is not an issue are from academic hospitals who largely don't deal with that side of patient care. At the ECCO conference in Paris last November, we were treated to a gaggle of posters presented by nurses. In one hallway about half the posters were dealing with various (mostly unsuccessful) attempts to reduce patient suffering from the rash. I spent a lot of time there (nurses are the single best source of real information on patient attitudes towards new drugs) and I'll stand by the claim rash is an increasing problem affecting sales growth.
Subtract Erbitux and the BMY partnership from IMCL. I doubt anyone would argue the company would be worth even half of what it is now. One Phase II/III candidate and a bunch of earlier stage stuff is not typically the stuff of billion-plus market caps.
And was the last sentence really necessary, Dew?
Unless otherwise indicated, this is the personal viewpoint of David Miller and not necessarily that of Biotech Stock Research, LLC
