Cardinal Health (NYSE:CAH) will set the price for Navidea Biopharmaceuticals‘ (NYSE Amex:NAVB) cancer drug that could be approved as soon as this summer.
While Navidea, developed the drug, called Lymphoseek, Cardinal will distribute it and collect half of its sales in the U.S., Navidea has said.
“In the final analysis, Cardinal will set the pricing,” said Tom Tulip, Navidea’s chief business officer, last week in a call with analysts. “But we’re working closely together with them on that.”
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Lymphoseek is a targeting agent used by surgeons to identify lymph nodes in patients with breast cancer or melanoma and to indicate whether cancer has spread to a particular lymph node.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to decide by this summer whether Lymphoseek is approved for U.S. sales. The drug has a PDUFA date of June 10, meaning an FDA decision is expected roughly around that time.
“Final pricing will also be contingent on the final FDA negotiated label, and we expect to have those negotiations over the course of the next couple of months,” Tulip said.
Tulip was careful not to throw out any numbers regarding prices, but analysts on the call didn’t need to be as cautious. One analyst said he’s estimating a per-treatment price of $400, and Tulip responded, “I wouldn’t argue with your assessment.”
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Past discussions among Navidea officials have indicated that pricing could range anywhere from $225 per dose to double that amount.
Navidea has pegged Lymphoseek’s annual worldwide market potential at $450 million.
“We expect initial market uptake for Lymphoseek to be predominantly in the three cancer types in which we’ve focused our clinical trials — melanoma as well as breast and head and neck cancers,” Tulip said. “In the U.S. alone, the annual incidence of these cancers exceeds 350,000.”
[Photo by flickr user ZaldyImg]
