Donepezil patch is cheaper than 99 existing formulations

The price of Donepezil patch 87.5 mg per week

Could Godex's crisis be a hope for Celltrion Pharmaceuticals at 90%?

Donepezil, a dementia treatment that has attracted attention for its convenience of administration, has been listed at a lower price than existing drugs, indicating that it has price competitiveness.

 

87.5mg patch, which replaces the existing 5mg tablet, costs 8,310 won per week, which is about 6,000 won cheaper than the highest price of the tablet.

 

It's lower than the latest production.

 

The Health Insurance Policy Review Committee of the Ministry of Health and Welfare held a meeting on the 20th and deliberated and voted on the upper limit of ICure Donhesive Patch and Celltrion Pharmaceutical Donerion.

 

The two drugs were jointly developed by the two companies.

 

Icure leads the commercialization clinical trial and is licensed jointly with Celltrion Pharmaceutical.

 

The production is handled by the ICure.

 

It is the first product to make Donepezil, which dominates the Alzheimer's dementia symptom treatment market by 80%, in the form of a patch.

 

In particular, unlike oral drugs that must be taken every day, it is expected that the compliance of dementia patients who forget to take medicine will be greatly improved as they only need to be attached twice a week.

 

The Korean Dementia Association believes that the drug is clinically useful because it has improved safety and convenience of taking medicine compared to oral drugs.

 

Looking at the upper limit registered this time, it was found that it has such convenience and economy.

 

The upper limit of 87.5mg, which is attached twice a week, was set at 4,155 won and 175mg at 6,076 won.

 

This is less than 90% of the weighted average of generics.

 

87.5 mg replaces the existing 5 mg tablet taken once a day.

 

The weekly price of 5mg tablets is distributed in various ways, with 125 products ranging from the lowest price of 3,500 won to the highest price of 14,420 won.

 

The original Aricept 5mg has an upper limit of 1,902 won per day, and the price per week is 13,314 won.

 

The 87.5mg patch is about 5,000 won cheaper.

 

Initially, ICure and Celltrion Pharmaceutical also predicted that they would sell it cheaper than the original, but it came out cheaper than expected.

 

It is much cheaper than powder type, which was first listed last month.

 

Hyundai Pharmaceutical's Hypezil.

 

The price of 5mg powder is 11,900 won, which is 3,590 won more expensive than 87.5mg patch.

 

From a company's point of view, if the sales volume is the same, the price must be high to make more profits.

 

However, since Donepezil is already a market where more than 100 pharmaceutical companies compete due to the expiration of patents and the recognition of original drugs is high, some analysts say that it will be difficult to settle in the market if the price is high as generics.

 

Celltrion Pharmaceutical is on the verge of withdrawing its benefit as Godex, which has recently reached 70 billion won in sales, concluded that it is not suitable for the evaluation.

 

Celltrion Pharmaceutical is also selling products that are acquired by its parent company Biosimilar and Takeda.

 

But there is a lack of blockbuster brands other than Godex.

 

Attention is being paid to whether Donerion Patch, which will be released this time, can be a representative item of Celltrion Pharmaceutical that connects Godex.