More Videos
|
CNBC'S MOST SHARED
- Unemployed? Bored? Make Money Playing Beer Pong
- Social Networking's 'Naked' Truth
- WPP's Sir Martin Sorrell on the Ad Recession
- The Highest Grossing (Inflation Adjusted) Movies of All Time
- Merrill's McCann Seen as UBS Wealth Frontrunner
- Geek Squad V. Gizmodo
- Warren Buffett's Top Three Investment Rules for the Average American
- Why You Should Watch Fund Flows
- Earnings 101: Beyond The Big Names
- Blog You!!!
- Eric Schmidt on Government Scrutiny and Economic Recovery
- Market 360: The Week's Best & Worst
- Geek Squad V. Gizmodo
- Brandt: Google Chrome OS in the Post-PC Age
- Other People Are Weirder Than We Are
- Bank Failures: Is The Nightmare Over? (Video)
- California Here I Go? No.
- Roginsky: No More Mr. Nice Guy
- Commercial Conundrum
- Stimulus Will Kick in Later this Year: President Obama
- Lender CIT Group Hires Premier Bankruptcy Adviser
- Government Selling Bank Stakes for Too Cheap: Panel
- Buffett's Top 3 Investment Rules for Average Americans
- Market Insider: Earnings Loom in the Week Ahead
- Bulls Get Summertime Blues, But It's Hot Fun for Bears
- As Banks Fail, Strong Institutions Become More Visible
- GM IPO in Second Quarter 2010 at the Earliest: CFO
- Merrill's McCann Seen as UBS Wealth Frontrunner
RSS FEED
Text Size 
Big pharma analysts keep close tabs on prescription trends. Many of them issue weekly reports to clients about what's up, what's down, what's holding steady. Investors use the data as a leading indicator for what quarterly sales and profits might look like. So, check out what A.G. Edwards' Joe Tooley is writing in his most recent "Weekly Prescription Trends" report.
Tooley titles it, "Lipitor Continues to Decline, Can Simvastatin (the generic version of Zocor) Surpass It?"
He goes on to write, "Simvastatin Still on Course to Catch Lipitor" (the bold type is his emphasis). "... (Merck's) [MRK
Loading...
()
] Zocor and simvastatin now hold a 23.9% total prescription share. Lipitor, on the other hand, has declined from a 41.8% total prescription share last year to a 33.5% share now. Unless Pfizer [PFE
Loading...
()
] can significantly change Lipitor's trajectory it appears to be only a matter of time before simvastatin becomes the market leader in the cholesterol-lowering market."
You may recall that in its first-quarter earnings release, Pfizer said for the first time that Lipitor sales possibly could be down modestly this year. Nonetheless, it is still by far the world's top-selling drug. A bunch of companies, including Israel's Teva Pharmaceuticals [TEVA
Loading...
()
] and India's Dr. Reddy's Laboratories [RDY
Loading...
()
], make generic simvastatin.
Tooley's data are based on numbers from IMS Health (a company that monitors prescriptions) and AG Edwards estimates. AGE or one of its officers has a long position in PFE.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes