More Details Emerge, On Concerns With Victrelis® & HIV Co-Infected

I am tempted to offer the acidic observation that this was dumped into a 9 pm Eastern Super Tuesday results news blizzard -- perhaps in the hope it would be buried under the drama unfolding in Ohio tonight. But I won't.

More seriously, I think this is going to turn into more tough sledding for the legacy Schering-Plough Victrelis^® (boceprevir) campaign -- it may never reach 20 percent share in the United States. Vertex will benefit here. From Whitehouse Station, tonight -- do go read it all:

. . . .Merck announced results as part of a late-breaker poster session [Poster #771] from a pharmacokinetic study evaluating drug interactions between VICTRELIS and ritonavir-boosted HIV protease inhibitors in 39 healthy volunteers. In this study, concomitant administration of VICTRELIS with ritonavir (Norvir®) in combination with atazanavir (Reyataz®) or darunavir (Prezista®), or with lopinavir/ritonavir (Kaletra®) resulted in reduced exposures of the HIV medicines and VICTRELIS. These drug interactions may be clinically significant for patients infected with both chronic HCV and HIV by potentially reducing the effectiveness of these medicines when co-administered. Merck does not recommend the co-administration of VICTRELIS and ritonavir-boosted HIV protease inhibitors.

"In light of the differing results in these data sets, Merck recognizes it is important to continue to study VICTRELIS in combination therapy in this difficult-to-treat patient population," said Eliav Barr, M.D., vice president, Project Leadership and Management, Infectious Diseases, Merck Research Laboratories. "Our collaborative studies with the French National Agency for Research on AIDS and Viral Hepatitis2 (ANRS) and the AIDS Clinical Trial Group (ACTG), which is funded by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, will provide greater insight into the potential role of VICTRELIS in treating patients with chronic HCV genotype 1 infection who are coinfected with HIV-1. . . ."

We first mentioned this a month ago, now. This will blunt the Roche marketing muscle, I guess, as well. Tough break.

Vertex Is A 84-16 Split Winner Over Merck -- In Hep C: Q4 2011

I'll do an updated graphic later tonight [done!] (the one at right is a projected 2011 -- we now have actuals), but Vertex also announced its Q4 2011 results this morning, and. . . Q4 2011 Incivek sales were $456.8 million. That's better than the 80-20 split, I earlier predicted.

Merck's Victrelis sold just $87 million in Q4 2011. That makes the share split for Q4 about 84 percent for Vertex; 16 percent for Merck. Ouch.

The Vertex presser:

. . . .Net Product Revenues from INCIVEK:

Net product revenues for INCIVEK for the fourth quarter of 2011 were $456.8 million. Vertex reported $419.6 million in net product revenues for INCIVEK in the third quarter of 2011. . . .

Recall that Merck reported only $53 million in Q3 2011 sales for Victrelis. Thus, life to date, the split is running at about 85 Vertex, 15 Merck. And that is a legacy Hassan "star"?! Oops.