Chapter 441: The Crisis of Nova
"David, how is the development progress of ranibizumab?" In the headquarters of Nova, an executive asked other executives about the development progress of new drugs. Ranibizumab is their new drug for macular degeneration. It is also a key project of Nova in recent years. According to their judgment on the market, once it is approved by the FDA, it will be another blockbuster drug.
"Steve, the clinical trial is going very well, and it won't be long before we can get FDA approval." David said confidently, "I've already started a public relations campaign against the FDA."
Everyone knows what the public relations action he is talking about is to provide those professionals who are responsible for FDA review with various comforts, to help them promote their academic works, to hold special academic conferences for them, etc., these large pharmaceutical companies With a wealth of operating experience, those reviewers can be convinced.
This is also one of the reasons why small pharmaceutical companies cannot afford FDA review costs. Not only does a new drug need to spend a lot of money on clinical trials, but public relations costs are also a lot of money; and most importantly, those reviewers are very sensitive to large pharmaceutical companies. I understand that I can accept their kindness with confidence, but I have never dealt with small pharmaceutical companies. Sometimes they may not dare to accept them if they want to show kindness.
In addition, large pharmaceutical companies can quickly pass the approval of their new drugs through various public relations activities. Considering the problem from another perspective, they can also use public relations activities to prevent certain new drugs that may have an impact on themselves from being approved. In order to protect themselves For their own interests, they can definitely do it.
"It's great, I believe shareholders will be very happy to hear this news!" Steve said excitedly, as executives, they can also get high bonuses from it.
"I'm sorry, gentlemen, I'm afraid I have to interrupt your celebration. Here's some bad news!" Steve and David were very happy, but the other executive looked stern.
"Norman, what's the matter? Is there something wrong with the development? Or is there another company's development plan that crashed with us? But I haven't received any similar news." David asked suspiciously.
"I just received an email with the unfortunate news that there is already a cheap macular degeneration drug on the market, and the price of this drug is only the price we plan to give to blue. A fraction of the price of nimumab, that is to say, before ranibizumab has been approved, it will face the impact of cheap drugs." Norman said with a serious face, "This is simply too bad."
Pharmaceutical companies can’t hear the word cheap. What we do is saving human life and maintaining human health. Such a sacred and great cause, can human life and health be measured by money? People who sell cheap drugs have so little respect for human life and health!
"What drug? Why didn't I hear the news?" David and Steve looked at each other,
If a company developed something similar, how could they not know about it?
"It is not a drug specifically for macular degeneration, but an off-label drug. Some doctors have found that Roche's Avastin has a significant effect on macular degeneration, so they often prescribe this drug to macular degeneration patients as an off-label drug, and this There is a tendency to spread in this way, and we didn’t notice it before.” Norman showed them the printed email content, “Look, the upward curve is very obvious, and this will definitely have a huge impact on our ranibizumab .”
"Damn it! These doctors are so irresponsible. Off-label medications are not safe for patients." David was filled with righteous indignation. How can you use methods that are not stated on the labels? Don't these doctors know that this will affect our earnings? Are we wasting our money on doctors? They are too unprofessional!
"It seems that we must hold an emergency meeting immediately to find a way to solve this problem!" The executives made a decisive decision and immediately called other personnel to hold an emergency meeting.
Norman showed them the email he had received on the big screen, "What we need to do now is stop these doctors from continuing to prescribe this drug to patients with macular degeneration as an off-label drug, and we must also convince Roche not to use the treatment Add macular degeneration to the label of Avastin, let’s talk about it, what can we do?”
"We can ask the academic community to issue a special paper to analyze the drug effect comparison between Avastin and ranibizumab, and let them tell those patients that there are safety risks in using Avastin to treat macular degeneration." Someone immediately suggested , As for whether there is really such a difference between the two drugs, they don't care.
Nova spends a lot of money every year to provide sponsorship to the academic community. They will find scholars who are willing to do these researches and can produce satisfactory research results. They have no doubt about this.
"I believe that Roche is not willing to sell macular degeneration treatment drugs at such a cheap price." They are all pharmaceutical giants, and they can't understand each other's thoughts, "We can give up part of the market and let Roche help us sell ranibizumab , in exchange for them banning Avastin for the treatment of macular degeneration."
"In this case, we will have to raise the price, otherwise the profits earned from ranibizumab will not satisfy shareholders." Steve said.
"Roche will support the price increase. Isn't that what they do when it comes to vitamin C?" Norman shrugged. They are also familiar with such things as price alliances.
"We also need to start public relations with the FDA, so that they prohibit doctors from prescribing drugs for macular degeneration patients in the form of off-label drugs. Of course, this should be done after the relevant papers are published." David suggested that the FDA should also take into account the impact. Banning without reason is a bit excessive, but it would be different if there were several papers pointing out the safety hazards of Avastin.
"Okay, let's do it, start assigning tasks now, David, you are in charge of the FDA's public relations, Steve, you go to find relevant scholars; let them come up with papers as soon as possible and publish them in the "New England Journal of Medicine" Journals above this level; I’ll go talk to Roche’s people and hear about their conditions first!” After some discussion, Norman finished assigning tasks, packed up his things, and prepared to end the meeting.
"Wait, there is one more thing. The Chinese branch wants us to help them put pressure on the local government to prevent the launch of a certain local drug." Someone said hastily.
"Ranibizumab is the most important thing now, let them handle it themselves!"
In reality, this incident did not happen at this time, but it is very representative, so I changed it to the present.