RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Italy I suspect TH will struggle to make the right call with Trogarzo simply because Paul is a sales guy and he is sure he can come up with a plan that will get those Trogarzo sales headed higher. And, who knows, maybe he can. He seems to be having some limited success with reinvigorating Egrifta sales so maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt for now. But he is in a difficult battle against much superior forces (Viiv and GILD). So, sucking as much cash flow as possible out of Trogarzo is likely the best option and that may actually be their plan with IV Push and IM hoped to slow the decline of sales of Trogarzo. To me, the early indications of the lower US Trogarzo sales tells me it is not clear spending on a new version of Trogarzo is going to help much. I doubt Taimed is interested in buying the marketing rights to Trogarzo back from TH or that there is another drug company who would be interested in buying those rights either, at least at a reasonable price. So, maximizing cash flow of this declining asset is likely best.
It is going to be a while before Taimed has the next version of Trogarzo through phase III (in phase II now) and it is not clear at all that it will be a superior product once it reaches the market. Nor is it certain that Taimed would accept TH as their marketing partner for the new drug (TH has a right of "first offer", but it is not clear what that means in practicality).
qwerty22 wrote: It's really hard to see where the upside is with Trogarzo. It definitely feels like a moment where the company should be re-asssessing their relationship with this drug. It's not just the cost of the IM trial, it continues to be a pre-occupation of the analysts and I'd agree with you it seems more like to be generating negative headlines rather than positive ones. Maybe they believe they can keep the short term story around Trogarzo neutral and maybe reap some rewards from a longer term relationship with Taimed, idk.
SPCEO1 wrote: If it is only a 13% discount, that is better than I would have expected. Actually much better. And since the deceline in US sales of Trogarzo has been faster than I expected, that is very helpful as TH tries to hold the line with Trogarzo total sales. Previously, I thought Trogarzo sales in the US would fall off only marginally and that total Trogarzo sales would grow. Now I am not as confident in that a s US Trogarzo sales seem to have been hit harder than I was expecting by Viiv. With new competition from GILD on the horizon as well, the outlook is not great for Trogarzo. The more MDR drug options there are, the greater the chance a patient will be willing to move to a pill from an injection since by abandoning Trogarzo, their body will likely develop a resistance to it. I was counting on that to keep all the Trogarzo patients TH could accumulate before Viiv's pill hit the market in place, but it looks like some patients are willing to give up one of the few (sometimes only) treatments that is working for them for the convenience of a pill.
I can't see the IV Push helping a whole lot with both Viiv and soon GILD offering pill options and wonder why TH is even bothering to pursue the IM version. Seems like there is a good chance any money spent on the IM version by TH is not going to get a great return.
That same competition will be undermining Trogarzo in Europe as well. TH apparently has about 20 people working out of Ireland supporting one small drug with some difficult competition on the horizon. Perhaps the idea is to build a European presence so they are ready if TH-1902 zips through to approval quickly, as it might. But one has to wonder about the ROI on Europe right now. Maybe there is a bigger plan that we are presently unaware of to get more drugs for Europe to sell in the meantime, but it seems to me that TH may be outrunning its headlights in Europe. From what I can see competitively, the most sensible approach to Trogarzo right now would be to milk as much cash flow from it as possible and not invest more in it.
scarlet1967 wrote:
Wino115 wrote: I think we can go with Paul's "...it was a good price..." ! Certainly not US levels, but probably not below 50%. It had always sounded to me like they thought they could get 75-80% of US price and the Viiv product provided a bit of an umbrella to that as well.
SPCEO1 wrote: I think I will need to hire an Italian lawyer to actually figure out what the annual revenues from one Italian patient on Trogarzo for a year might be! They also mentioned discounts but it is not clear to me what those discounts might be and there seemed to be other circumstances that might impact the price. But figuring all that out seems like a lot of work and that you need to know someone familiar with Italian drug pricing to get an accurate answer.
scarlet1967 wrote: "packaging: «200 mg - concentrate for solution for infusion -
intravenous use - vial (glass) - 1.33 ml (150 mg / ml) »2
vials - AIC n. 048255018 / E (base 10);
reimbursement class: H;
ex factory price (excluding VAT): euro 2,000.00;
retail price (VAT included): € 3,300.80.”
I don’t know what the reimbursement H class means versus retail price but 2000 euros equals US $2328. Compared with the US pricing excluding VAT(tax in Italy 22%) it seems it’s about 13% cheaper in Italy.
“The cost for Trogarzo intravenous solution (200 mg/1.33 mL) is around $2,671 for a supply of 2.66 milliliters.
The annual list price for every two-week infusions is $118,000.”