RE: WOW....some shareholders were upset Top 10 reasons why Qysmia sales will be disappointing:
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#1: The drug is available in the generic form (Topirimate and Phentermine) for a fraction of the cost of Qysmia.
#2: FDA approved Qysmia with a REMs. The drug can only be sold through handful of specialized mail-order pharmacies. It cannot be sold in neighborhood pharmacies.
#3: You can kiss the European sales goodbye as European Medicine Agency has rejected the drug. Phentermine is banned in Europe, no surprise that EMA rejected.
#4: Phentermine is banned in Canada. Don't be surprised when Canada rejects for the same reason.
#5: Woman of child bearing age cannot take the drug because of risk of fetal defects. There goes a large majority of the patient population.
#6: Anyone with heart disease cannot take the drug because of know side effect of elevated heart beats with phentermine. There goes another chunk of the patient population, specially elderly.
#7: VVUS has not lined up even a single partner. The competitors in the obesity drug space have a major pharmaceutical companies as partners. ARNA has Eisai as a partner, OREX has Takeda.
#8: Management sold tons of shares at the peak price of $30 after the FDA approval. Stock has not fallen to almost half of that price.
#9: FDA had major problems with the Qysmia's FORTRESS clinical trial. Why Qysmia was approved inpite of that is anybodies guess
#10: The competition drug Belviq has minimum side effects and will be used as first-in-line treatment by doctors