Breast cancer indication could bump Evista sales

INDIANAPOLIS -- Eli Lilly and Co.'s osteoporosis medication Evista could get a significant boost if the Food and Drug Administration approves it for use as a breast-cancer preventative.\nA federal study of nearly 20,000 women released this week showed Evista is safer, but as effective, as the typically prescribed breast cancer preventer, tamoxifen.\nAnalysts estimate that worldwide sales of the drug could increase as much as 15 percent by 2008 if Evista's use in high-risk postmenopausal women is approved. That could help Indianapolis-based Lilly decrease its reliance on the anti-psychotic Zyprexa, which accounts for nearly one-third of the company's $14.6 billion in net sales.\n"It could be a very good boost," said George Farra, a principal with Woodley Farra Manion Portfolio Management in Indianapolis. "Evista is part of that wave of the last several years that were going to reduce the company's dependency on central nervous system drugs."\nKeri McGrath, a Lilly spokeswoman, said the company plans to ask the FDA to approve Evista as a breast cancer preventative by the end of the year. She declined to comment on the company's sales projections for the drug.\n"Right now, we're really focused on the submission," she said.\nEvista, also known as raloxifene, received FDA approval in 1997 and was first sold to consumers the following year. Experts had predicted the drug would quickly become a blockbuster, but sales didn't surpass $1 billion until 2004, records show.\nEvista is now Lilly's No. 4-selling drug. Last year, worldwide sales climbed 2 percent to $1.04 billion, largely driven by international patients. But U.S. sales dropped 2 percent to $653 million, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.\nJohn Boris, an analyst with Bear Stearns, predicted the bone drug's sales could be $1.2 billion by 2008. But he said in a published research note that Evista's performance won't be able to "meaningfully improve" unless it receives federal approval as a breast cancer preventative.\nBank of America Securities analyst Chris Schott predicted the study's results "will likely reinvigorate Evista growth."\nIn a research note, Schott increased his projected sales for the drug by 25 percent, saying he thought sales would rise to $1.2 billion by 2010.\nOthers were less optimistic.\nTim Anderson, a health care analyst at Prudential Equity Group, said he expects Evista sales to remain flat.\n"While the breast cancer data is interesting, we don't think it will translate into a significant new revenue stream for a variety of reasons," he wrote in a research note.\nAmong them is competition from new osteoporosis medications that could hit the market in the next two years.\nStill, the $88 million study by the National Cancer Institute indicates that at least 2 million women might benefit from Evista's cancer-reducing effects.\nThe study showed that taking tamoxifen or Evista daily for up to five years cut in half a woman's chances of developing invasive breast cancer.\nWhile Evista caused similar side effects to those seen in tamoxifen, they did not occur as frequently. Evista users had 36 percent fewer uterine cancers and 29 percent fewer blood clots.\nEvista is more costly than tamoxifen, which comes in a generic form and also is sold by AstraZeneca PLC under the brand name Nolvadex.\nA one-month supply of Evista would cost about $85, compared to $50 for tamoxifen, according to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, the state's largest health insurer.\nFarra said he doubted the added cost would hurt Evista if it is approved for the new use.\n"I think that the overall efficacy of Evista and its ability to help prevent breast cancer will probably cut through that," he said. "If anything, it will get a significant halo effect, as women who are postmenopausal are taking hormone replacement therapy who had not considered Evista may consider it now as a two-for-one kind of treatment."\nLilly shares rose $1.49, or 2.8 percent, to close at $54.50 Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.