Aegerion sales and marketing update

Aegerion provided pricing for its homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (hoFH) drug Juxtapid lomitapide in a presentation at the 31st annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference on Jan. 8. The company said the U.S. annual gross price per patient will be $235,000 for the 5 and 10 mg doses and $295,000 for the 20, 40 and 60 mg doses. The recommended initial dose is once-daily 5 mg, which may be titrated to 10, 20, 40 or a maximum of 60 mg daily. When the drug was approved in December, Aegerion said it planned to launch Juxtapid in the U.S. at an annual price of $200,000-$300,000 per patient.

Prior to the presentation, the company said it expects FY13 global net revenues of $15-$25 million, with 250-300 patients receiving Juxtapid by the end of this year. The drug's REMS requires patients to have a "clinical or laboratory diagnosis consistent with hoFH," but does not specify how the diagnosis must be made. Previously, the REMS did not require a specific diagnosis to dispense the drug. In its presentation, Aegerion identified a population of 3,000 potential patients in each of the U.S. and EU territories. ...