This was posted in the WSJ yesterday by Jacob Goldstein - we like reading his blog about healthcare, especially when he writes about diabetes. We thought Sanofi's timing for the name change announcement was a little funny - reminded me about the "assumptive close" that you learn for sales (if they talk about the official name, of course there will be no real issues June 13...). Seems like maybe just waiting for an FDA "up or down" decision might be better than describing name changes ... I think we had actually first heard about this at another company presentation at JP Morgan.
Goldstein says 40% is high for an out of pocket pay for a drug - we agree, but obesity is something else again ... NO number would fail to surprise us in this area.
May 3, 2007
Posted by Jacob Goldstein
Calling a weight-loss drug “Acomplia” promises too much, the FDA has decided. So if the highly anticipated medicine from Sanofi-Aventis makes it to U.S. shores, it likely will be called “Zimulti.”
“It has been considered that Acomplia could be too descriptive or eventually misleading,” a Sanofi exec said in a conference call about earnings early this morning, according to a transcript from Thomson Financial. “The FDA agreed finally on Zimulti.” (To us, the new name seems to promise a mysterious Italian delicacy — “We’d like the Zimulti with clams, please.”)
The twist is somehow fitting for Acomplia, a drug that has gone from wunderkind to problem child in recent years, with holdups at the FDA amid concerns over psychological problems that arise in some patients. But the drug, known generically and without controversy as rimonabant, may simply be a late bloomer.
The drug has been approved in Europe, and in this morning’s conference call Sanofi said that some 40% of patients taking the drug there are paying out of pocket — a strikingly high figure in the land of universal health care. And Sanofi is hoping for a U.S. launch by the end of the year.
Bonus call: Also in the conference call, company officials refused to comment on speculation that the company could acquire Bristol-Myers Squibb but said the company is “actively looking” to buy mid-sized drug companies in Japan.
Permalink | Trackback URL: http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2007/05/03/whats-in-a-name-too-much-for-acomplia/trackback/
Comments