This newly approved cancer drug gives some indication of the earning potential of a successful cancer treatment. Perhaps Solbecs market cap is a little low , considering the early evidence of efficacy already demonstrated by Coramsine .
UPDATE 3-Roche wins EU approval for cancer drug Avastin Fri Jan 14, 2005 07:54 AM ET (Adds pricing estimates, further analysts' comment) By Tom Armitage
ZURICH, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Roche Holding AG (ROG.VX: Quote, Profile, Research) has won European Union approval for its colon cancer treatment Avastin, which helped drive growth at the Swiss drugmaker last year after sales got off to a flying start in the United States.
Roche said on Friday that the drug had been granted marketing approval by EU regulators, as expected, as a first-line treatment for colon cancer in combination with certain kinds of chemotherapy.
The decision was effectively a rubber-stamping of a positive recommendation on Avastin made by a panel of European experts in October last year. It means that Avastin can be rolled out across the bloc in the next few weeks, Roche said.
Co-developed with Roche's biotech division, Genentech (DNA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , Avastin was approved in the United States last February and by Swiss regulators in December.
The drug racked up U.S. sales of $555 million by the end of 2004, just 10 months after being launched, and most analysts expect peak sales of between 1 billion and 2.5 billion Swiss francs ($845.3 million-$1.7 billion).
"Today's news is positive for Roche," Zuercher Zantonalbank analyst Hernani de Faria wrote in a note to clients. "It supports our Avastin sales estimate for 2007 of 2.45 billion Swiss francs."
GERMAN ROLLOUT
Avastin is expected to be launched first in Germany, and analysts at SG Cowen said they expected the product to command a price of around 3,000 euros ($3,931) per month.
Analysts at Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch noted, however, that the label granted by the EU opens up only around a third of the European colon cancer market to the drug, meaning that the sales potential is more limited than in the United States.
Colon cancer was the third most commonly reported type of cancer in 2000, with close to a million cases worldwide. Over 50 percent of people with the cancer eventually die.
Roche certificates, its most commonly traded form of equity, were changing hands at 127.70 francs, up 0.6 percent in a slightly firmer market.
However, quarterly figures released by Genentech earlier this week suggested that the initial burst of growth from the drug in the United States was starting to slow as fourth-quarter revenues fell below expectations.
Avastin, known generically as bevacizumab, works by starving tumours of their blood supply and belongs to a broader family of targeted cancer treatments that promise to fight the disease without the toxic side effects associated with chemotherapy.
Sales of Avastin have helped propel Roche to the number one spot in terms of cancer drug revenues, and analysts have singled Roche out as their top pick in the European pharmaceuticals sector thanks in part to its portfolio of cancer drugs.
Avastin is also being studied for use in a range of other cancers including lung and breast cancers, with results from those trials due later this year or next.
Genentech also produces Tarceva, a pill to treat lung cancer, which was launched in the United States in November and is expected to come to Europe in the second half of this year.
Roche is due to report full-year earnings on Feb. 2."
