Early Sales of Eli Lilly's Migraine Drug Disappoint
Eli Lilly and Co.'s (LLY) new migraine medication, Reyvow, is giving the pharma giant a bit of a headache.
Overall, the company's second-quarter sales fell below expectations. The new acute migraine medication Reyvow failed to make up the revenue shortfall caused by customers stockpiling medications when the pandemic began, thus causing ongoing sales to take a hit. Revenues fell 2.4% to $5.5 billion compared to the same period a year earlier.
A bright spot was that new medications made up more than half of sales in the quarter. FiercePharma reported that in the wake of that performance, Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Louise Chen wrote in a note to clients the company is entering a "period of earnings growth" as it doesn't have any major losses of exclusivity coming up and possesses multiple "first-in-class" or "best-in-class compounds" in its pipeline.
Lilly has high hopes for Reyvow given the size of the opportunity. The global acute and preventive anti-migraine drugs market is expected to reach nearly $13 billion by 2027, growing at a compound annual rate of nearly 10% during the forecast period, according to a report from iHealthCareAnalyst.
The American Migraine Foundation estimates migraine headaches affect 38 million in the U.S. alone. They are most commonly diagnosed among women. By region, migraines are most commonly diagnosed in the Americas, followed by Europe, then Africa and Asia.
Migraine drugs generally fall into two categories: prevention (lowering the frequency and severity of attacks) and acute therapy (aimed at halting the headaches once they are in progress). The market for both methods has been stable and dominated by low-margin generics for years That could change as new treatments enter the market.
Lilly's Reyvow works differently than other acute treatments. It is the first drug of its type to hit the market, but it faces competition from a number of other new medications.
One challenger is Ubrelvy, which AbbVie Inc.(ABBV) inherited as part of its acquisition of Allergan. Ubrelvy is part of a new class of drugs called Anti-CGRP mAbs, which have been proven to reduce the chance and severity of migraines, according to iHealthCareAnalyst. These treatments work by blocking the action of a protein fragment called calcitonin gene-related peptide, a novel approach to migraine drugs.
In the same class as Ubrelby is Nurtec from Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Company Ltd. (BHVN). Biohaven may very well be on the way to becoming the leader in acute treatments of migraines. The Connecticut-based company reported that in the first full six weeks following its launch, Nurtec had the greatest week-over-week growth for new acute migraine treatments during that time period, generating over 6,000 prescriptions written by more than 1,000 health care providers. Biohaven also has another drug, vazegepant, currently in phase 3 clinical trials for the acute treatment of migraine in an intranasal solution.
Other public companies with migraine treatments are Amgen Inc. (AMGN), Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY), GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK), Novartis (NVS), Otsuka Holdings Co Ltd. (OTSKY), Pfizer Inc. (PFE) and Teva (TEVA).
Disclosure: The author holds positions in Eli Lilly, Bristol-Myers, Amgen, Pfizer and Teva.
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This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
