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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2015 8:53:10 GMT -5
Brandicourt got a $4.5 million sign on bonus in Feb of this year... sickening. Wow. I thought bonuses were for a job well done. Sanofi is reckless. thats an incentive for him to lead the company into profits/increase revenues as Sanofi knows they are losing lantus to tresiba and toujeo is dud..everyone who knows diabetes space knows toujeo is dud.. do you think they dont know? do u think Oliver doesnt know? the 4.5 mil is for him to accept the risk.. and some of the normal positions give sign on bonus tooo
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Post by dreamboatcruise on Dec 8, 2015 10:17:50 GMT -5
Not good news... both for people needing Afrezza in MN and for shareholders. Formularylookup.com lists 9% of Medicare plans in MN covering Afrezza, but that may still be 2015 data. I checked and a couple of the supposedly covered plans are from Express Scripts... so I went to their site and used their search tool to find plans that cover particular drugs. I used a St. Paul zip code... sadly, no plans seemed to cover Afrezza since the prices they gave amounted to around $3500/yr for the Afrezza cost. So either the formularylookup.com data is simply wrong, or this is the case that some insurers that had coverage are now dropping it $3500/yr for the Afrezza cost. $9.58 per day. May I ask, What unit combination? www.afrezzapro.com/afrezza-configurations Any spares for second dose?
That was one box of 90 4u at a Walgreens.
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Post by peppy on Dec 8, 2015 10:29:45 GMT -5
That was one box of 90 4u at a Walgreens. So in the real world Sanofi insured a slow launch. They priced Afrezza so high, only a few, Type 1's would have the insurance and or money to afford afrezza. Got it. The rest is lip service. The next question, why?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2015 10:38:31 GMT -5
peppy why? the only answer on record by SNY is that based on their surveys they found that people should be willing to pay a premium for inhaled insulin over injectable insulin. I dont' have a link handy but it's out there from last fall timeframe. So I believe that's the official answer. I also believe the "other" reason why pricing is high might be due to the relationship - SNY and mnkd need to build in enough profits in their price structure to make it worth it. They figured out the costs including mnkd's cost, advertising/marketing, additional trials, etc and tack on profit margins and arrive at a target selling price. If the current pricing is as low as they can go to meet their financial goals, then afrezza is toast under this arrangement. If not, then there's room to drop the price and still be profitable for all involved. This, imo, is the billion dollar question! edit - found the link to sny and pricing: www.fiercepharma.com/story/its-put-or-shut-time-sanofi-and-mannkind-afrezza-hits-market/2015-02-03
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Post by bradleysbest on Dec 8, 2015 10:40:06 GMT -5
I wonder if Al & MNKD "feel" that SNY is sand bagging Afrezza? Would really like to know how they feel about the partnership right now.
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Post by sweedee79 on Dec 8, 2015 13:18:16 GMT -5
peppy why? the only answer on record by SNY is that based on their surveys they found that people should be willing to pay a premium for inhaled insulin over injectable insulin. I dont' have a link handy but it's out there from last fall timeframe. So I believe that's the official answer. I also believe the "other" reason why pricing is high might be due to the relationship - SNY and mnkd need to build in enough profits in their price structure to make it worth it. They figured out the costs including mnkd's cost, advertising/marketing, additional trials, etc and tack on profit margins and arrive at a target selling price. If the current pricing is as low as they can go to meet their financial goals, then afrezza is toast under this arrangement. If not, then there's room to drop the price and still be profitable for all involved. This, imo, is the billion dollar question! edit - found the link to sny and pricing: www.fiercepharma.com/story/its-put-or-shut-time-sanofi-and-mannkind-afrezza-hits-market/2015-02-03 IMO they cant price something as being superior and expect sales until they have proven to insurance companies, patients and doctors that it actually is. Right now knowledge of Afrezza is SO limited and the FDA says.. NON INFERIOR .. If people don't know it is superior... why will they pay a superior price??? Afrezza is a game changer and it is just so frustrating especially on days like today...
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2015 13:24:25 GMT -5
I agree, completely. I've brought up this point in the past and the response that made some sense to me was that if a company goes into negotiations with a lower price, it only goes down from there. So, start high and work your way down and hopefully get a price that works for everyone. So, fast forward to today. What I'm not understanding is this - we all can see the difficulties in getting afrezza on tier 2. Everyone knows pricing is a major issue. Afrezza's been for sale since feb and the forumularies do their work for the next year in the previous few months, from around august till november or thereabouts. So, armed with the information, armed with about 6 months of experience, knowing that insurance companies aren't the ones balking, why didn't SNY lower the price to get better insurance coverage? They are doing it with their basal. Why not afrezza?
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Post by trenddiver on Dec 8, 2015 13:27:29 GMT -5
I wonder if Al & MNKD "feel" that SNY is sand bagging Afrezza? Would really like to know how they feel about the partnership right now. I'm sure they are seriously questioning Sanofi's game plan, but I don't think sandbagging is their concern. Big Al or his proxies will weigh in at the JAC meeting this week and hopefully will be demanding significantly more resources devoted to Afrezza in addition to lower prices and tv advertising. Trend
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Post by EveningOfTheDay on Dec 8, 2015 13:34:54 GMT -5
I wonder if Al & MNKD "feel" that SNY is sand bagging Afrezza? Would really like to know how they feel about the partnership right now. I'm sure they are seriously questioning Sanofi's game plan, but I don't think sandbagging is their concern. Big Al or his proxies will weigh in at the JAC meeting this week and hopefully will be demanding significantly more resources devoted to Afrezza in addition to lower prices and tv advertising. Trend OK, I'll buy that, but then if they truly do not have any concerns about Sanofi's commitment, wouldn't the current situation be something they already discussed and knew about? Or did management in Mannkind completely washed their hands and just went along for the ride agreeing with everything Sanofi threw at them, just now realizing that maybe they should have been a bit more involved.
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Post by trenddiver on Dec 8, 2015 13:38:12 GMT -5
I'm sure they are seriously questioning Sanofi's game plan, but I don't think sandbagging is their concern. Big Al or his proxies will weigh in at the JAC meeting this week and hopefully will be demanding significantly more resources devoted to Afrezza in addition to lower prices and tv advertising. Trend OK, I'll buy that, but then if they truly do not have any concerns about Sanofi's commitment, wouldn't the current situation be something they already discussed and knew about? Or did management in Mannkind completely washed their hands and just went along for the ride agreeing with everything Sanofi threw at them, just now realizing that maybe they should have been a bit more involved. The short answer is YES.
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Post by EveningOfTheDay on Dec 8, 2015 13:42:28 GMT -5
OK, I'll buy that, but then if they truly do not have any concerns about Sanofi's commitment, wouldn't the current situation be something they already discussed and knew about? Or did management in Mannkind completely washed their hands and just went along for the ride agreeing with everything Sanofi threw at them, just now realizing that maybe they should have been a bit more involved. The short answer is YES. YES they knew things could get this bad or YES they washed their hands when they should have been more involved all along.
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Post by james on Dec 8, 2015 13:47:15 GMT -5
I agree, completely. I've brought up this point in the past and the response that made some sense to me was that if a company goes into negotiations with a lower price, it only goes down from there. So, start high and work your way down and hopefully get a price that works for everyone. So, fast forward to today. What I'm not understanding is this - we all can see the difficulties in getting afrezza on tier 2. Everyone knows pricing is a major issue. Afrezza's been for sale since feb and the forumularies do their work for the next year in the previous few months, from around august till november or thereabouts. So, armed with the information, armed with about 6 months of experience, knowing that insurance companies aren't the ones balking, why didn't SNY lower the price to get better insurance coverage? They are doing it with their basal. Why not afrezza? This is a very good question, but I don't think we see the full strategy to this yet. There are a couple of possibilities: 1) We are not yet seeing the outcome of formulary negotiations and pricing that become effective in January 2) There is a superiority trial planned 3) SNY is sleeping on the issue and / or haven't determined a plan to address this I rather expect #2 is in the works which certainly seems like the best long term strategy, although perhaps the riskiest. But I'm having a little difficulty squaring this with the approach to financing by MNKD. In general, I have been quite disappointed in the approach to pricing so far.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2015 13:59:53 GMT -5
james there's been a lot of discussion about improving the label which I agree should be a major priority. I don't have a handle on timeframes to negotiate the details of the trial with the FDA, whether SNY is even interested or focused on this effort yet, how many participants, for how long, etc However, I still have to believe that being superior isnt' enough to demand a higher price. Too many examples of superior drugs with a higher price getting locked out of prime insurance coverage. But it might make a major difference to the marketing effort and convincing endo's that this drug should be their one of choice. At least that would be a start and better than where we are at right now.
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Post by james on Dec 8, 2015 14:05:00 GMT -5
At the moment, even having a plan to pursue such a trial (presuming funding is adequate to support) would be demonstration of Sanofi's confidence of it's likely outcome and further demonstrate commitment in the product. I expect that would be received positively in the market. I'm not qualified to know how long it would take to put together. And, I think you are right on the other points - price would likely still need to come down, but it would also generate some further interest from the medical community just to have it going.
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