BOLAR/HERCON TRANSDERMAL NITROGLYERCIN PATCH SALES APPROACH $2 MIL

Executive Summary

BOLAR/HERCON TRANSDERMAL NITROGLYERCIN PATCH SALES APPROACH $2 MIL. in the product's first two months on the market, Bolar President Robert Shulman told a David Saks' drug and health care seminar in New York on Oct. 28. "Bolar introduced the product in August 1986 and I believe we've sold approximately $2 mil. worth of it in September and October," Shulman reported. Acknowledging that much of the initial sell-in was from trade stocking, Shulman added that "reorders are starting to come in and it looks like this is going to stay with us and be a very good product." The transdermal nitroglyerin patch, designated NTS, was approved in April by FDA as an ANDA. Bolar began shipments to the trade in August after production scale-up and an early promotional effort during the summer. Hercon noted that Bolar is marketing NTS to distributors at approximately 50% of the price for Ciba-Geigy's Transderm-Nitro. Also speaking at the meeting put on by the Morgan, Olmstead, Kennedy & Gardner analyst, Hercon President Agis Kydonieus, PhD, said that in an 18-person bioequivalence study NTS "showed 99.9% bioequivalency to the [Marion's] Nitro-bid ointment." The Hercon exec noted that while Bolar is marketing the product itself, the generic firm is also selling the product to other generic drug marketers for private label marketing. Kydonieus said that Bolar "is selling the product to an additional seven or eight generic companies," including Rugby, Geneva, Major, Goldline, Bioline, Qualitest, and Lemmon. "In addition," Kydonieus said, "the product has been licensed in Germany, France, and Italy and we expect to start distributing the product in Europe early in 1987." Hercon's parent company, Health-Chem, announced in August that its subsidiary had signed an R&D agreement with Bolar worth approximately $4 mil. covering six additional transdermal generics ("The Pink Sheet" Aug. 25, T&G 1). Health-Chem noted at the time that three of the six products covered in the agreement have reached the human clinical testing stage. In all, Kydonieus said, Hercon has "about 40" drugs in different stages of development, including seven in clinical studies. Hercon has filed an ANDA for an undisclosed antihypertensive product, Kydonieus added.