Consumer Awareness Of New Obesity Drugs Remains Low

There may be a pair of recently approved prescription diet pills available, but is the public paying any attention? Investors are alert if only because they are betting on profits from the two manufacturers – Vivus and Arena Pharmaceuticals. Meanwhile, doctors are reportedly skittish about prescribing and insurers are balking at providing coverage. But what about interest among consumers? One analyst suggests that awareness of the new obesity drugs is low, assuming that a look at trend lines on Google is a useful proxy. According to Needham analyst Alan Carr, he poked around and found that there were 33 times more searches for Alli, when it was launched over-the-counter in 2007, than for Belviq, which is sold by Arena, at the peak number of searches in June 2012 (see here, and play around with the charts, too). Moreover, searches for Alli, Xenical, a Roche diet drug that went nowhere, and phentermine, which is the surviving half of the disgraced fen-phen weight loss-cocktail, are currently 11 times, 2.5 times and 5.5 times more common, respectively, than for Belviq. In general, searches for both Belviq and Qsymia, the Vivus drug, have not exactly been robust. Of course, Google Trends is only a proxy for understanding consumer awareness. But if the searches yielded impressive numbers, one could easily envision that the data may be used to bolster theories and projections that one or both drugs – or at least the promotional messages behind them - are starting to catch on wi...
Source: Pharmalot - Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs