#$vvus

I’m traveling this week, so I’m not able to write a new blog post, but I thought I would share the video of the presentation J. Carlo Cannell and I made at last year’s Stansberry Conference in Las Vegas. I’m scheduled to present at the conference again this September. You can register here if you’d like to attend.

An important near-term event for Orexigen Therapeutics occurs on Dec. 19 when the European Medicine Agency announces the approval recommendations from the monthly meeting of the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP).  

Orexigen's Mysimba (the European brand name for the weight-loss pill Contrave) is on the December CHMP agenda. If CHMP recommends Mysimba's approval, Orexigen will have a significant advantage over weight-loss pill competitors Arena Pharmaceuticals and Vivus, both of which have been rejected by European regulators.

Tuesday, I polled biotech investors on Twitter to gauge sentiment for the upcoming Mysimba European approval decision. The results are posted in the chart above:

72% of respondents believe Orexigen will secure European approval for its weight-loss pill. 28% believe Mysimba will be rejected in Europe. (I voted in the approval camp.)

Here comes Orexigen Therapeutics, winning big-time market share from obesity pill rivals Vivus and Arena Pharmaceuticals.

The chart and graph above were tweeted out this morning by professional money manager @zbiotech, who tracks new prescriptions of obesity pills using data generated by Symphony Health. 

For the week ended Dec. 5 (the last week of data available), Orexigen's Contrave captured 28% of new prescriptions. Contrave's been commercially available for eight weeks and already had market share for new prescriptions equal to Vivus' Qsymia.

In that same time span, NRx market share for Arena Pharma's Belviq has dropped from 60% to 44%. 

Why is Orexigen's Contrave launch outperforming its obesity pill rivals? Give substantial credit to Orexigen's marketing partner, the Japanese drug maker Takeda:

Selling weight-loss pills to fat Americans is clearly more difficult than Vivus and Arena envisioned. Orexigen will face the same challenges, but of the three companies, it has the best marketing partner in Takeda because of its metabolic drug expertise. Takeda's diabetes drug Actos is a blockbuster, so expect the company to apply that know-how to selling Contrave. If approved, Takeda is going to launch Contrave with 900 sales reps, which is way more than Vivus and Eisai (Arena's marketing partner) deploy.   Orexigen also has the advantage of having the only obesity drug with clinical trial data ruling out an increased risk of heart-related side effects. Interim, top-line results from the Contrave "LIGHT" cardiovascular safety study were announced last fall. Data from the heart-safety study are unlikely to be included in the Contrave FDA label just yet in order to allow the study to continue to the end. Still, Takeda sales reps might just find a way to make sure doctors know that the interim analysis of the LIGHT study was positive.

Investors are taking notice. 

VIVUS, Inc.'s Stendra lets you get it up faster

This morning VIVUS, Inc (VVUS) and Auxilium Pharmaceuticals (AUXL) announced that the FDA had approved their Stendra drug.

Stendra is the only erectile dysfunction medication that can be taken as little as 15 minutes before sex.

This is such a perfect drug for the short attention span, immediate gratification society we now live in and so kudos to VIVUS, a small cap biotechnology company, which is trading up 15% on the news.

You can now get excited before getting distracted by your mobile device.

The best thing about this ADHD age erection med, though, is the way the drug is being marketed (see image above).

"This time he was ready before they got home" with the amorous couple still in the car.