Here’s the editorial for the new issue of the magazine I edit for my day-job. Enjoy:
You, Too?
In the Pharma business, there’s no shame in coming in second. Or third
Hardly seems like four years, but that’s how long it’s been since we launched Contract Pharma. We started with a November/December issue back in 1999, so finishing this issue each year feels something like an anniversary to me (which probably helps explain why I’ve never been married).
It doesn’t feel quite like a year-end edition, because of production lead times, which leave us around seven or eight weeks till 2004. It’s hard to get that impending New Year’s perspective when Thanksgiving is still weeks away. So, no 2004 resolutions this issue; we’ll save that for next time around (the Jan/Feb issue). Instead, I’d like to get into the topic of me-too-ism.
A recent BusinessWeek article (“Is Viagra Vulnerable?” Oct. 27, 2003) goes in-depth with the marketing staff for Lilly, which is responsible for handling the launch of Cialis, a competitor to Viagra and Levitra. Cialis will be backed with a $100 million direct-to-consumer publicity campaign, a first for Lilly (which developed the drug with Icos). The campaign is intended to differentiate the new drug from the others in its class, with the long-term goal, according to Lilly chief executive officer Sidney Taurel, of reaching $2 billion in annual sales for Cialis by 2010.
Reading the piece during the flight to AAPS, the line in the article that caught my attention was from Leonard M. Blum, Icos’ vice president of sales and marketing. Expressing the challenges Cialis faces, he said, “There aren’t many examples in our industry of products launched in second or third position that end up becoming the leader. It’s a tall order.”
Doubtless, this line surprises some of my readers, just as it surprised me; it seemed antithetical to the practices of the Pharma industry as we know it. After all, the recent history of the Pharma business is filled with drugs that were second-in-class and managed to perform just fine in the marketplace. In fact, a recent study by McKinsey, published in a Nature Reviews supplement, indicated that, of the 32 biggest blockbuster drugs of the past decade, the number of “first-in-class” drugs was matched by the number of “me-too” products that were launched more than 15 years after the “first-in-class” drugs. The study also indicated that, of the nearly 200 drugs launched by the top 15 Pharma companies during that period, the highest per-drug sales amounts were among “fast followers,” launched between two and 15 years after the original.
Obviously, Nexium is still rolling along just fine, last I checked (which would have been during our July/August Top Companies report), despite being a late-comer in the proton-pump inhibitor market. Similarly, there’s room for more than one statin out there (and AstraZeneca’s hoping there’s room for one more with Crestor). In fact, over at In the Pipeline, Contract Pharma contributor Derek Lowe discusses the reductio ad absurdum argument that drug companies should only focus on me-too drugs, since they’re the most profitable. Of course, the reality is that, if every company did this, no one would put out any new drugs, and the drug cycle would end in one patent period.
Now, this isn’t to say that Cialis has nothing to worry about, or that its success is assured by its not being the first drug in its class. Nor, however, does it seem as uphill a task as Mr. Blum made it out to be to BusinessWeek. It’ll certainly be an adventure in marketing, as the three companies work to differentiate themselves in the marketplace, while remaining within the boundaries of taste and discretion. But, given the American shift to “lifestyle” drugs, and the graying of the population, being “third-in-class” shouldn’t be too much of a hurdle for Cialis to overcome.