government orders intravenous relenza, page-5

Don't overestimate the IV market.

IV antivirals are expensive and only given to the critically ill. Their high cost at $450-$2,250/treatment compared to <$50 for inhaled relenza and tablet tamiflu, means that the market is small.

For relenza IV at $450/course and are allowed to sell 40,000 doses means US$18m in sales or royalies of $1.26M to BTA. A drop in the ocean compared to the 190m doses x 7%.

The reasons for funding other IV drugs are to diversify and lower the cost of drugs for critically ill patients.

To provide a backup in case of resistance to tamiflu/peramivir.

And I think that they are more than a little angry with the high cost of peramivir seeing that the govt provided nearly all the funding for drug development.

Relenza (via inhaler) will provide the big $ in the short-medium term and Lani the big $ in the medium to longer term.


Mal