January 14, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor
The chief financial officer of AbbVie said Wednesday that its coveted hepatitis C treatment has been receiving some “very compelling” offers for exclusive access to distribute and it now expects to have a one-daily HCV pill available by the end of 2015, as another salvo in a bidding war between AbbVie and Gilead was lobbed at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.
Express Scripts started the price war between dueling hepatitis C drugs in October when it said it would change its standard formula to a new, cheaper AbbVie treatments instead of choosing Gilead Science’s pricey Harvoni or Sovaldi drugs.
William Chase, executive vice president and CFO of AbbVie, also said that price war not an issue because “our contracting strategy is not driven by targeting market share” in hepatitis C vaccine. Chase added that AbbVie is working diligently on having a once-a-day pill ready to deliver—and said the company will primarily be targeting partners who can control the pricing of HCV drugs.
Chase made the comments at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference which began Monday in San Francisco and is the oldest and largest conference of its type. It includes 300 of the largest biotech, healthcare and biopharma companies presenting their top-line data and estimates to 4,000 eager bankers, analysts, institutional investors, hedge funds and journalists.
AbbVie has already inked an exclusive deal to provide its hepatitis C treatment, dubbed Viekira Pak, to all hepatitis C patients covered by massive benefits provider Express Scripts’ plans, as opposed to just the most ill. Viekira Pak received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in October to treat hepatitis C genotype 1 after new data showed it had cure rates in the mid-90 percent range during clinical trials.
The money at stake is significant: AbbVie‘s reiterated Wednesday that its launch of Viekira Pak has pushed its earnings per share up 30 percent in 2015, with adjusted EPS of between $4.25 and $4.45 per share. That blows the analyst consensus of full year 2014 estimate for EPS of $3.30 out of the water, agreed most market watchers this week.
Express Scripts CEO George Paz already took aim Tuesday at companies that charge sky-high rates for drugs that are essentially a cure, such as Gilead’s hepatitis drugs Harvoni and Sovaldi. Express Scripts has pointed out that many public health programs like Medicaid and state prison systems currently foot the bill for the $94,500 price tag of Sovaldi, which has a cure rate of around 90 percent.
“Everyone’s got to make money, but how much?” said Paz.
