File this under a not-so Brilinta move? Now, that the FDA has finally approved Brilinta, a bloodthinner developed by AstraZeneca that had to overcome a curious hurdle, the drugmaker has set its pricing. But one Wall Street analyst questions whether AstraZeneca may have priced itself out of the market. To wit, Brilinta will cost about 19 percent higher, on a wholesale acquisition basis, than Plavix, the leading bloodthinner, which faces generic competition next May. Moreover, the Brilinta labeling suffers from a Black Box warning that may give physicians a reason to use Plavix, according to Sanford Bernstein analyst Tim Anderson. An AstraZeneca spokesman confirmed that daily WAC pricing is $7.24 which, by the way, will be about 25 percent higher than Eli Lilly’s Effient.
