- Japanese pharmaceutical company Shionogi & Co Ltd's CEO believes its COVID-19, Xocova, pill can generate $2 billion in annual sales if it secures FDA approval.
- The company expects U.S. approval by late 2024.
- The treatment is a protease inhibitor, just like Paxlovid, the COVID-19 treatment made by Pfizer Inc PFE.
- "I think $2 billion out of the COVID-19 market is not very difficult," he said, basing his estimate on Pfizer's forecast for more than $20 billion in COVID-related sales in 2023.
- Japanese regulators granted emergency approval in November, making it the nation's first domestically produced oral treatment for COVID.
- CEO Isao Teshirogi told Reuters that the drug could be approved in South Korea and China as early as next month.
- While Xocova came later to the market than Shionogi initially hoped for after Japanese regulators twice requested more data, the company says interim results of a study suggest taking the pill could lessen a patient's chances of developing long COVID.
- "If you kill the virus fast enough and sharp enough, the lower the probability of long COVID. That's our hypothesis, but we need to prove that," Teshirogi said in an interview.
- Shionogi sold 2 million courses of Xocova, taken once daily for five days, to the Japanese government last year for ¥100 billion yen.
- Jefferies analyst estimates that only about 11,000 courses of Xocova are consumed monthly in Japan.
- Shionogi hopes for Xocova sales of around $1 billion to $1.5 billion this year.
- Price Action: PFE shares are down 1.52% at $41.13 on the last check Monday
- Photo: Image by Thomas Breher from Pixabay
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