MS Prize of $1.3 Billion Spurs Merck KGaA, Novartis!
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Merck KGaA and Novartis AG are racing to market the first multiple sclerosis pill, a prize that may generate $1.3 billion a year in sales as patients switch from injectable drugs.
Merck and Novartis plan to ask regulators this year to approve tablets to fight the incurable illness. Initial test data showed that patients who took the drugs had fewer disease flare- ups than those who received placebo or existing treatments.
A pill may mean an end to painful injections or infusions that can cost $28,000 a year to control multiple sclerosis, which can rob people of their mobility and leave them with chronic aches and depression. Merck, of Darmstadt, Germany, and Novartis, of Basel, Switzerland, are running ahead of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Biogen Idec Inc. and Sanofi-Aventis SA in the chase for an oral treatment. The results may shake up the $6 billion multiple sclerosis market.
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4 comments:
To add to the confusion of MS patients like me with the arrival of therapy in pill form, the article states that Copaxone has two pharmaceutical companies, Sanofi and Teva. As a user of Çopaxone and MS patient for six and half years it is only Teva, unless I missed something that occurred recently. Anyone?
Where Maria (Dondé), does it read that Copaxone has two companies..
I think it is clear that the article reads Teva, Biogen and Sanofi - in different places on the article.
Dear Anonymous,
See the paragraph that reads :
Rebif vies with two other so-called beta interferons, Betaseron by Bayer AG and Biogen's Avonex, and with a fourth injected therapy, Copaxone from Sanofi and Teva.
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