Thursday, April 22, 2010

Merck's Januvia®, Beaten By Norvo Nordisk's Victoza®: Tomorrow's Lancet


More hard-scrabble news for Whitehouse Station, here -- this time, published in The Lancet (out tomorrow), and reported by Reuters, tonight:

. . . .Daily injections of both high- and low-dose Victoza® reduced blood sugar levels by more than a daily tablet of Januvia® in people with type 2 diabetes who had not responded adequately to the older drug metformin, researchers said on Friday. . . .

Novo demonstrated two years ago that Victoza controlled blood sugar better than Byetta®, a drug from the same class of medicine that is sold by Eli Lilly and Amylin Pharmaceuticals. . . .

We'll be keenly interested to see whether the declines in Merck's common stock prices, on the NYSE, of late, are simply pricing in health care reform, or reflect a more company-specific set of weaknesses in larger Merck franchise drugs -- Vytorin/Zetia, Cozaar/Hyzaar and now, Januvia. Stay tuned for May 4, 2010 -- at 8 AM EDT -- we'll live-blog it.

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