BioCentury
ARTICLE | Product Development

PEG-Intron: Supply & demand

January 22, 2002 8:00 AM UTC

Aligning supply with demand is a fundamental tenet in business. Schering-Plough Corp. anticipated that demand would be high for its PEG-Intron pegylated interferon alpha-2b, which was approved last year to treat hepatitis C, because of its more convenient dosing compared to conventional interferon. Even so, the company under-estimated its requirements to supply the product, which is formulated using PEG technology from Enzon Inc. (ENZN, Piscataway, N.J.).

While there's a chance SGP now may lose some patients who will instead use conventional interferon, the company thinks it more likely that most will be able to wait for the pegylated version, which requires only one weekly injection versus three with Intron-A...