Recothrom, Evithrom, Thrombin JMI

Anyone interested in Thrombin, Zymogenetics, King and J&J should follow this blog by Joe Tartakoff.
During last week's ZymoGenetics conference call, Ed Tenthoff of Piper Jaffray asked ZymoGenetics CEO Bruce Carter if he was noticing any moves by Johnson & Johnson.
Here's the exchange:
Tenthoff: Can you just update us on where pricing is for RECOTHROM and how some of the competitors have responded, and there's, you know, we've noticed very little in terms of noise from Evithrom ...
Carter: With the bovine thrombin, we are seeing a limited discounting... And like your search for J & J (Johnson & Johnson), I guess it's fair to say they are out there, but perhaps not as much as one might have expected from the name Johnson & Johnson. In fact, I could go stronger, surprisingly little considering it's Johnson & Johnson.
Omrix Biopharmaceuticals, which sells Evithrom along with Johnson & Johnson, begs to disagree.
During Omrix's conference call to report its results, CEO Robert Taub was asked how he would characterize "your market share for thrombin versus competitors, including both King and ZymoGenetics."
His response:
"I think we -- well we'll put it this way. Obviously our market share of thrombin is lower than King and it is higher than ZymoGenetics."
Then, another analyst pressed him on why that was the case, considering that the conceptual risks associated with cow-derived thrombin (that patients would develop antibodies against the product) would probably be the same with a human-derived one.
Taub's response:
Bovine thrombin has been around for so many years, and the arguments about antibody formation, it's not very convincing and you have to be very careful. I heard that the FDA gave a warning just two or three days ago to some very aggressive promotional literature by ZymoGenetics on that. So the need, if you want, to change is not very high. So I think what's really driving it is contracts, introduction in the hospitals, bundling, and sales mention and service at this stage.
Still, Taub conceded that the thrombin market was a difficult one to break.
In a release last week announcing its first-quarter results, the company said Evithrom sales "continue moderate growth." Read the release here.
And during the call, Taub used the word "slow" twice to refer to the market for thrombin:
... As we have expected the stand-alone thrombin market is and will change slowly. It's a slow process. While stand-alone thrombin will continue to to be an important product, we also continue to believe that long-term thrombin growth will ultimately be driven by thrombin-based enhanced hemostats, where thrombin is combined with other agents such as various forms of gelatin and which will be easier to use.
Overall, it seems that Evithrom is running into many of the same hurdles as ZymoGenetics, which is having to wait for hospitals that have used the King product for years to vote to allow the use of Recothrom.
Taub:
... There seem to be very low awareness of any risks related to bovine thrombin. And the manufacture of bovine thrombin has been sitting on their market position for a long time and the ramp up is slow, because of the P&T (hospital) committees, and these contracts that have to be done... There is also less way to innovate unless you develop, which we are planning and doing with J & J.
Source: SeattlePI