Bad News for Merck's Fledgling Sleep Drug

The drug is inferior compared to Sanofi's Ambien and others, according to analysts Dresdner Kleinwort (click the download at the bottom of this post). "We don't see gaboxadol as good drug," sez DK. The compound, being developed by Lundbeck, is called gaboxadol. (You first read about it in Brandweek here.) Because it's reached stage 3, Merck now owes Lundbeck a "milestone payment." I ask the same question I asked about Lilly a few days ago: Why? This is an increasingly crowded category in which even successful new entrants have had only modest revenues compared to the Ambien brands. Sanofi maintains its dominance in this category. Perhaps people are expecting Ambien to crumble when it goes generic? Lilly, Merck et al had better have something special if they expect that to happen, because Sanofi knows what it's doing in this category and if it can survive the sleep-eating scandal then it can survive that.

Download MAILME-153714-N.pdf