By contrast, April sales of King Pharmaceuticals' Thrombin-JMI, which directly competes with Recothrom, jumped 11.5 percent to $23 million, according to IMS.
King has dominated the market for more than a decade and is now facing competition from both Recothrom (which was approved by the FDA in January) and Johnson & Johnson's Evithrom (which went on the market last year).DeGeeter -- who has been bearish on Recothrom's prospects since its launch -- says:
"While we acknowledge the limitations of monthly sales data, the IMS numbers are not consistent with the upbeat comments from ZGEN management on the pace of product adoption.
ZymoGenetics has said that most of Recothrom's sales will take place during the second half of the year. Because Recothrom is bought by hospitals, committees at those institutions have to meet in order to decide whether to add the treatment to the selection of products that doctors can choose from to use. The process can take six months or more."
I e-mailed ZymoGenetics spokeswoman Susan Specht and asked whether the April sales numbers were in line with the company's expectations.
She said:
"The selling process is a long one and could take six months or more to work through with each hospital. We're making progress and expect that work to pay off in the second half of the year."
Source: The Life Sciences Blog
