Martine Rothblatt
Analyst · Cowen and Company
The trends are upward. Trends are upward. I think we've talked before and I'd like to reiterate now that we're seeing triple digit, meaning over 100 patients starts each month on Tyvaso. Some people say Tyvaso. Whatever. So that's really, really positive. The growth in revenues is because, as I mentioned in my introductory remarks, the drop-offs from therapy, which are generally due to death, are less. And as a result, the average duration on therapy has now hit 16 months, which is actually the highest figure since we launched the drug. So that's very, very positive sign on patient growth for Tyvaso. With regard to Adcirca, there is a strong growth, it's coming from -- first of all, newly diagnosed patients are overwhelmingly being placed on Adcirca compared to sildenafil. But there's always kind of a first move or advantage and sildenafil was in the market for 3 years or so before us, so there are a lot of physicians who sort of automatically prescribe sildenafil. But we've got a fantastic group of field sales reps that are detailing upwards of 4,000 or 5,000 physicians and making sure that all the physicians are aware that with Adcirca, you only have to take your medicine once a day whereas with sildenafil or Revatio you have to take it 3 times a day. And because rebound hypertension is the feared black dragon of pulmonary hypertension, that when the blood vessels in the pulmonary arteries are not forcibly relaxed through pharmacotherapy, then they tend to quickly constrict like a closing fist. And that's very dangerous for the patients. And patients are just normal people like you and me, any one's going to forget to take their medicines or their vitamins or whatever. And so forgetting to take 1 or 2 Revatio dosage is a serious matter. It's nothing to joke about. So I think this is leading to the growth that I mentioned that we're now over 80% of total patients -- or over 75% of total patients in some KOL [ph] centers we're over 80 reps see over 90% of all of their patients, and these people have like 200 patients or more on PDE-5 have -- they've switched them all to Adcirca. You're probably aware that during the past quarter, there was some data presented at one of the major health care conferences that showed that it is very safe and effective to switch a patient from Revatio to Adcirca. So as physicians, for example, ask us for copies of those publications or posters, we're able to send that information to them. At the moment it's mostly in poster form. It'll soon be in publication form, which has even better and stronger weight on the physicians' prescribing practices. So beyond a doubt, Adcirca is the place to be in terms of the PDE-5 therapy.