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Post by mnholdem on Dec 12, 2016 12:19:57 GMT -5
www.biospace.com/News/sanofi-to-cut-20-percent-of-its-u-s-diabetes/441612/source=TopBreaking
December 12, 2016
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Paris-based Sanofi (SNY) announced on Friday that as part of a realignment for its U.S. diabetes and cardiovascular business, it will lay off approximately 20 percent of its U.S. staff from that business unit.
Sanofi’s U.S. diabetes business has been taking a hammering. Its blockbuster diabetes drug, Lantus, lost patent protection in the U.S., and some of its pipeline has not lived up to expectations, including its failed partnership with MannKind Corporation (MNKD) for Afrezza, an inhaled form of insulin. Its next-generation cholesterol drug, Praluent, has also been slow to take off.
“As a result of the new model, we did announce an approximate 20 percent staff reductions, including our sales force and some business support functions for this business unit,” a Sanofi spokesperson told BioPharmDIVE.
Sanofi’s Diabetes and Cardiovascular unit sales dropped 2.5 percent globally during this year’s third quarter, and its diabetes franchise was down 1.5 percent. Eli Lilly and Co. (LLY) is launching a biosimilar to Lantus called Basaglar next week. Sanofi launched its own follow-up to Lantus, Toujeo, but so far it doesn’t appear to be gaining much traction in the marketplace.
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Of course, the question of the day is, "Would MannKind consider hiring any ex-Sanofi employees?"
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Post by goyocafe on Dec 12, 2016 15:46:10 GMT -5
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Post by uvula on Dec 12, 2016 15:46:53 GMT -5
We now have a lot of people who know what really went on behind the scenes and have nothing to lose by talking.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2016 16:04:10 GMT -5
We now have a lot of people who know what really went on behind the scenes and have nothing to lose by talking. Its been settled what does it matter at this point |
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Post by careful2invest on Dec 12, 2016 17:25:38 GMT -5
We now have a lot of people who know what really went on behind the scenes and have nothing to lose by talking. Its been settled what does it matter at this point As far as the general public as well as many Diabetics, Endo's and GP's know, AFREZZA was a failure ( according to Sanofi)Exposing what really went on (with Sanofi's handling of AFREZZA) would certainly help shed that false image of AFREZZA not being worthy of being marketed in the US, as Sanofi stated when they ended their partnership with MNKD. AFREZZA would be so much further ahead had an honest effort from a large BP taken place two years ago. Instead of a near burial! There is no doubt that stigma is still hurting the marketability and general acceptance of AFREZZA. To what degree is subjective. Can MNKD overcome this? I believe so. The more people that get exposed to AFREZZA, the closer we get to success! JDRF being involved as well as other components that have been put in place are all positive. We are finally heading in the right direction! Better late than never! GLTA TRUE LONGS! |
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Post by sophie on Dec 13, 2016 0:02:30 GMT -5
As far as the general public as well as many Diabetics, Endo's and GP's know, AFREZZA was a failure ( according to Sanofi)Exposing what really went on (with Sanofi's handling of AFREZZA) would certainly help shed that false image of AFREZZA not being worthy of being marketed in the US, as Sanofi stated when they ended their partnership with MNKD. AFREZZA would be so much further ahead had an honest effort from a large BP taken place two years ago. Instead of a near burial! There is no doubt that stigma is still hurting the marketability and general acceptance of AFREZZA. To what degree is subjective. Can MNKD overcome this? I believe so. The more people that get exposed to AFREZZA, the closer we get to success! JDRF being involved as well as other components that have been put in place are all positive. We are finally heading in the right direction! Better late than never! GLTA TRUE LONGS! Why is Sanofi still being blamed? Afrezza would have cannibalized their market? It's not like Apidra is setting records. If they thought as highly enough of Afrezza that they felt the need to sabotage it and bury it, even 35% of what Afrezza would get them would greatly outweigh what they get currently for Apidra. That's even dismissing the notion that they could buy Afrezza outright if they wanted to. That might not be the strongest argument, although it's enough to close the case. Exubera failed. Inhaled insulin has been tried before and wasn't widely adopted. There was a stigma with prescribers before Afrezza came along that needed to be overcome. There are numerous barriers inherent in Afrezza. We have a black box warning. Competitors have cornered several of the insurance companies, making coverage difficult. We've been in charge of our own destiny for 6 months now. This board needs to pick a side- either doctors aren't aware of Afrezza, or they are and there is a stigma associated with it. Both cannot be blamed on Sanofi. They're mutually exclusive. If a doctor is unaware of Afrezza but has a stigma against it, it is not by Sanofi's doing. It may be Exubera or black box warning or... If doctor's aren't aware of it, where are the scripts our reps have been working 6 months for? They should have run into plenty of doctors that didn't know about it by now. Even if they're not able to talk to a doc face to face, they should be more creative and go door to door in neighborhoods or hold up signs at pharmacies. Surely patients/doctors would walk past them there. I'm not trying to be a short, but I don't think our failure is any more Sanofi's fault than our management's. Sanofi needed to do what was best for them. It appears it was probably a bad decision since they can't seem to get their own house in order, but it's hard to prove malicious intent when considering the contents of this message. There have been reports on here of other companies researching and possibly developing their own inhaled version of insulin but those plans got shelved. I don't think FDKP is the only molecule capable of delivering proteins safely through the lungs. Maybe it was because Afrezza would ultimately decrease insulin use and therefore reduce margins from their other products, be it prandial or basal formulations.... If a competitor has a "vastly superior" product, you don't let them beat you to the punch. You rush to the market first and build a wall around it. No one is doing that. The losses incurred on other insulins would be gained by this perceived dominance Afrezza would have on the prandial market. Pharma companies aren't dummies. They know just as well as we do that Afrezza could be drug of choice for type 2 diabetes if they put forth the money to fund a study to prove it. But they're not.... There isn't an argument for Sanofi sabotaging Afrezza that doesn't have a stronger counter argument. If there was this malicious plan all along, they completely took their foot off our throat by breathing new life into us with the recent settlement. Their pockets are much deeper than ours and they could have dragged any lawsuits far past insolvency. Why didn't they? Because it didn't matter to them. I'm not sure why this is dwelled on. Is it some sort of consolation prize? Afrezza hasn't sold because it hasn't been marketed well. Sanofi can take the blame for that. A nefarious plan? They can't even market their own drugs well... So far, no one else has offered to carry the football past the 2 yard line and into the endzone. All the heavy lifting has been done. All it takes from now is a treasure chest. Plenty of pharmas have those. Unless it was Al's dying wish not to sell Afrezza (doesn't make sense since we can either get value for it if such a thing exists or inevitably sell it for scraps in an auction if it comes to that) we would have entertained any reasonable offer. With a multi billion dollar industry, even an offer of $1 billion cash wouldn't be refused. Could you imagine how much life that would breathe into the embarrassment of riches? To all who are tired of this argument- me too.... it's why I just wasted another 15 minutes of my life trying to hopefully deliver the final blow to our poor dead horse. If someone wants to refute anything I've said, the floor is yours. I'm open to new ideas. None of the other ones presented thus far are convincing. |
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