Compliance as marketing tool

Assuming that SangStat Medical Corp.'s SANG-35 version of cyclosporine is approved by the FDA to prevent transplant graft rejection, the company will go up against a well-entrenched version, Neoral, sold by a competitor with far more resources, Novartis. Rather than trying to compete solely on price, SANG has decided to differentiate its product with a device designed to address physician concerns about patient compliance.

Philippe Pouletty, chairman and CEO, noted that in searching for a way to differentiate SANG-35, the company asked itself how to improve cyclosporine therapy rather than cyclosporine itself...