By ALEX BERENSON
Exubera, the first and so far only commercially available inhaled-insulin diabetes treatment, is on the verge of turning into an expensive failure for its maker, Pfizer.
At one point, the company regarded the drug as a potential blockbuster. But despite six months of marketing to doctors, Exubera receives only about one of every 500 prescriptions for insulin written in the United States.
A new diabetes pill, Januvia, which is made by Merck and was approved after Exubera, is already prescribed about 40,000 times a week in the United States, 25 times as often as the Pfizer drug.
And so Wall Street analysts are cutting their sales estimates for Exubera, which has been dogged by questions about its safety, cost and convenience.
Pfizer says it has not given up on Exubera and last week started a new marketing campaign to persuade doctors to prescribe the medicine. In January the company projected that despite its slow start, Exubera would eventually achieve worldwide sales of $2 billion. But doctors and analysts are skeptical.
“I don’t think the drug can be saved,” said David Risinger, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, who last week cut his estimates for Exubera sales. Mr. Risinger now expects that Exubera will have $310 million in sales worldwide in 2012, down from his previous estimate of $800 million. Other analysts have also cut their forecasts.
Exubera’s problems add to the uncertainties facing Pfizer, whose shares have lost almost half their value since 2000.
While the company remains highly profitable, its financial health is increasingly tied to Lipitor, a best-selling cholesterol-lowering medicine that faces competition from cheaper drugs and in several years, patent expiration.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/business/10drug.html?ex=1333857600&en=90e481b8629e7386&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
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