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November 2007
ECR recently announced that Cephalon, a major US pharmaceutical
and biotech firm, had acquired the Company's marketing
rights to Amrix, a once-a-day dosage muscle relaxant
formulation. Amrix is the first in its class of once
daily musculoskeletal relaxants. Its active ingredient
is cyclobenzaprine, the most widely prescribed drug
in this market.
ECR's VP, Pharmaceutical Operations,
Davis Caskey, indicated that the sales potential for
Amrix had grown markedly during its developmental period,
and that the limited marketing exclusivity currently
provided to newly developed formulations was the major
factor in not promoting Amrix through its own sales
group. "It would have been our preference to market
the product through our own sales force and we had planned
to do so. However, when a small company has spent 7
years and millions of dollars developing a product,
and you have three years of exclusivity to try to recoup
your expenses and make a profit, you have to be able
to put significant resources into its marketing and
do so quickly. We developed a product which we believe
can offer patients significant therapeutic advantages,
and at the end of the day the only reasonable decision
was to place it with a company which could maximize
its potential in the marketplace during the brief exclusivity
period." Cephalon has more than 600 people in its
sales force and is well established in the pain management
market.
"It was a difficult decision for
us because of the time and effort put into the product
to achieve NDA approval. Small firms and their sales
people don't often have the opportunity to promote a
product with this potential, and the enthusiasm of our
entire company was at its peak . But in balance, if
you cannot maximize promotion of the product, physicians
and healthcare professionals don't readily know about
it, and patients don't benefit."
For more information about Amrix, please
contact:
Cephalon Medical Services at usmedinfo@cephalon.com
or toll free by calling 800-896-5855.
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