Raptor Pharmaceutical Corp.’s (RPTP) newly approved drug for cystinosis, an orphan indication with 500 patients in the U.S. suffering from this rare lysosomal storage disease, is expected to be priced at highly profitable levels, says Boris Peaker, Executive Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.
“Raptor is in the late stages of a drug for orphan indication. They’ve already completed clinical studies. They’ve submitted the file with the FDA; the only thing that’s left is for the FDA to respond. They have a PDUFA date April 30. We think it’s relatively low-risk on approval, so I think the drug looks very good. The real question there is pricing, and sometimes people cringe when they hear pricing in the several-hundred-thousand-dollar range, and it’s understandably so,” Peaker said.
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The FDA has since approved the drug, and the commercial launch in the U.S. is anticipated by the end of Q2 2013, according to RPTP‘s most recent press release. Peaker believes that the market will indeed pay high prices for the drug, and he expects the key driver of the stock to be the pricing announcement that is expected in several weeks.
“The market keeps paying those prices, so we believe that the key driver of the stock is going to be pricing announcement, which we anticipate several weeks after approval. But we really like it because it’s a nice orphan indication, patients are easy to find, and you could charge a lot of money for the drug,” Peaker said.
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