SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Jan. 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Anesiva, Inc. today announced that the company has completed the hiring and deployment of its hospital-focused sales force to support the commercial introduction of Anesiva’s FDA-approved Zingo(TM) (lidocaine hydrochloride monohydrate) powder intradermal injection system, in the second quarter of 2008.
“By adding a sales force and sales leadership team with substantial hospital sales experience to our commercial group, we believe we’ve laid the groundwork for a successful introduction of Zingo in the second quarter,” said Nancy E. Donahue, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Anesiva. “Anesiva’s representatives will focus on creating demand by informing and educating nurses and physicians about Zingo. Their initiatives will be complemented by the efforts of Sagent Pharmaceuticals’ representatives, who will work primarily with hospital pharmacies. These synergistic selling roles are expected to drive faster inclusion on hospital formularies and sales uptake.” Anesiva and Sagent have a co-promotion agreement for Zingo in the United States.
The two Anesiva sales directors are Joseph Levato and David Randall. Joe is an award-winning seasoned professional with 17 years industry sales experience, the past 10 in management. A significant portion of his experience is in the hospital marketplace. Joe has managerial depth with strong skills at building teams, launching new products and exceeding goals. Dave comes to Anesiva from Elan Corporation where he spent 13 years, the past six as a manager in the Hospital Specialty Business. During this time, Dave continued to take on new roles with increasing responsibility and consistently exceeded expectations.
Anesiva’s 15 Regional Account Managers (RAMs) also have a significant amount of tenure and previous success driving formulary additions and uptake in the hospital market. On average, they have 14 years of selling experience, 9 in the hospital arena. The RAMs are located in geographic areas in the United States that have significant concentrations of pediatric hospitals. These institutions perform the majority of the 18 million annual peripheral venous access procedures in children ages three to 18. The RAMs have completed training and are now deployed into their territories.
About Zingo
Zingo provides topical, local analgesia to reduce the pain associated with peripheral IV insertions or blood draws, and is FDA-approved for use in children three to 18 years of age. Zingo is an easy-to-administer, single-use, needle-free system containing 0.5 mg sterile lidocaine powder. It provides rapid onset of action, allowing intravenous line placement or venipuncture to begin one to three minutes after administration.
In two pivotal, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical studies, a total of 1,114 pediatric patients in the U.S., Zingo demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in procedural pain compared to placebo. In the clinical trials, the most common adverse events were redness (erythema), red dots (petechiae) and swelling (edema) at the site of administration.
About Anesiva and its Diverse Pipeline of Pain Products
Anesiva, Inc. is a late-stage biopharmaceutical company that seeks to be the leader in the development and commercialization of novel pharmaceutical products for pain management. The company has one FDA-approved product, Zingo(TM), for the reduction of pain associated with peripheral venous access procedures in children ages three to 18. The second product in Anesiva’s pipeline, Adlea(TM), has been shown to reduce pain after only a single administration for weeks to months in multiple settings in numerous mid-stage clinical trials for site-specific, acute and chronic, moderate-to-severe pain. Anesiva is based in South San Francisco, CA. For more information about Anesiva’s leadership in the development of products for pain management, and an overview of the clinical challenges being addressed by its product candidates, go to http://www.anesiva.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “expect,” “estimate,” “project,” “budget,” “forecast,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “plan,” “may,” “will,” “could,” “should,” “believes,” “predicts,” “potential,” “continue,” and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Forward- looking statements in this press release include matters that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from results expressed or implied by this press release. Such risk factors include, among others: the timing and results of our clinical trials, whether Anesiva is able to manufacture its products on commercially reasonable terms, whether Anesiva can secure FDA approval for the use of Zingo in adults, and the degree to which Zingo gains market acceptance. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements in this press release. Additional information concerning these and other risk factors is contained in Anesiva’s quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2007.
Anesiva undertakes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after this press release. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.
CONTACT: Carol DeGuzman, Senior Director of Investor Relations of Anesiva,
Inc., +1-650-246-6898, investors@anesiva.com; or Carolyn Wang of WeissComm
Partners, +1-415-946-1065, cbwang@wcpglobal.com, for Anesiva, Inc.
Web site: http://www.anesiva.com/
