RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:12,000 possible US Trogarzo patients? Unfortunately governments and third-party insurers have formularies and their main consideration is cost containment. You could make a case that an injection or iv infusion is preferable to ensure adherence but I don't see the market for trogarzo getting much bigger. I believe the market for egrifta has potential for good growth provided the company has good life cycle management. It is absolutely relevant now to be discussing sales and market growth of the legacy drugs. Thats all the company has left if cancer is a bust. Everyone knows the upside if cancer pans out but it's also important to know what the downside is from the current price.
SPCEO1 wrote: First, in the US, pricing really does not matter much since the governement or a private insurance company is footing the bill. Patients and doctors should not really be considering anything other than the effectiveness of the drug.
Second, ifan HIV patient is on a successful medication, they don't switch to a new one because the run the risk of losing it as a future option since the body will buld up resistance to it if it use is halted. That is why it was so important for TH to make a lot of headway in the market before Rukobia became competition since it was going to win any head to head battle just based on it being a pill. My read of the situation is Trogarzo is a bit better than Rukobia from an efficacy/side-effects standoint but noenough to outweigh the benefit of taking a pill versus getting an infusion.
Still, there must be some fans of Trogarzo in the doctor community as its sales have grown slightly. That is likely more attributable to price increases than new patients but I suspect there have been a few new patients too. The new hire from Viiv may also have brought good contacts with him and his relationships might boost sales a little.
jeffm34 wrote: from what can see Rukobia pricing in the US runs around $8000/mo. It comes in a tablet and is widely available at most pharmacies.
trogarzo I think runs closer to $10,000/mo it needs to be given by IV (which costs money as well) and is only available in specialty pharmacies.
If both products have similar efficacy why would anyone use trogarzo ?
Wino115 wrote: I wonder if Rukobia pricing was the reference price that put Trogarzo below the floor price Taimed set. Not that any of this really matters at this point, but seems the Germans and Italians set a price above that floor, but France and perhaps others indicated it would be below that level, thus making it completely uneconomic for any distributor. It's basically up to Taimed to adjust their floor price if they can in order to compete with Rukobia. In 6 months we'll see if they were able to find someone else to take that territory up. I sort of doubt it will happen unless they lower that floor a lot and ask THTX to go back in and do it on an economic basis. I would bet Taimed are more interested in tyring to develop that next gen product which would be first line and not last line.
qwerty22 wrote: I'm pulling numbers from GSK's quarterly reports. For example Q1 2022, table on page 24, definitely says 3 months total $16 million, $15 million US, $1 million Europe.
https://www.gsk.com/media/7639/q1-2022-announcement.pdf
SPCEO1 wrote: I will try to get those copied in properly when I have a chance. Trogarzo monthly sales running near $2 million and Rukobia around $7 million.
SPCEO1 wrote: SPCEO1 wrote: Here is what Bloomberg (Symphony) say Trogarzo and Rukobia sales have been:
[img]https://https://imgur.com/0bLWrF3[/img]
[img]https://https://imgur.com/MsX5Uqt[/img]
qwerty22 wrote: ok, yes, I ended up down a rabbit hole of Rukobia sales.
USA sales
Q1 2021 $7 mil
Q2 2021 $10 mil
Q3 2021 $15 mil
Q4 2021 $14 mil
Q1 2022 $15 mil
Got established (probably payor thing) then no growth over 3 Qs.
qwerty22 wrote:
Just on where Rukobia sales are going.
From what I can see GSK reported USA sales of $15 mil in 3rd Q and $14 mil in 4th Q. I guess 2022 wasn't quite a full year for this new drug.
This is trogarzo's main rival for MDR patients that need new options. As I said their absolute number is higher probably because they started with a much bigger pool of patients from their clinical trial but it doesn't look like there's much growth going on.
qwerty22 wrote:
GSK generated $43 mil in sales of fostemsavir (Rukobia) in the first year They had much larger clinical trials and the difference between their sales and THTX could easily just be the number of patients that flipped over from getting the drug for free to buying it on the market when it got approved. If anybody is patient enough we can wait see what happens in year 2 to their sales growth.
I really just don't expect that 12,000 headline number for potential patients captures the reality of the situation. Viiv's own research showed most MDR patients stable on the pre-existing hiv drugs, especially the newest ones. I don't think this is about THTX failing to execute, the market is just more limited than this 12,000 number leads you to think.
(Rukobia numbers on page 16)
https://www.gsk.com/media/7377/fy-2021-results-announcement.pdf
jeffm34 wrote:
I would like to see a cost comparison on the different treatment options. I think Taimed has priced the product out of the market like they have in Europe. Maybe try selling the drug at a reasonable price. If you cut the price in half could you at least double the number of patients?
SPCEO1 wrote: All of us would but don't bet on it. If something like that number of patients were possible it likely would have happened in the first couple of years when Trogarzo was on the market without any competition.
Bucknelly21 wrote: Id be happy with 1k of those 12k