Recently we ran a report (also on https://www.wavedata.co.uk/articles ) which showed the long term prices of Efient and Prasugrel Tabs 10mg 28. Today we thought we’d look at the market activity for the same products over the last 10 years. Market activity or record count is the number of prices we see for a product in our data. This is mainly made up of the price lists sent to pharmacies and dispensing doctors, but there are a few invoices in there as well. It gives an indication of the amount of activity wholesalers and manufacturers are putting into selling these products to their customers.
Looking at the graph it is fairly obvious that the small number of offers made for UK packs of Efient Tabs 10mg 28 did not change much over the ten year period. Equally there wasn’t much change in the number of market offers for the parallel import. Right from the word go there have been about 15 offers for the parallel import per month, and although this has declined a little, there isn’t a great deal of long term change. This is somewhat surprising as after the generic has been launched, the need for the brand declines as does the requirement for the parallel import.
It shows that the importers make as much effort to sell the PI when the brand has exclusivity and lots of potential as they do when generics have taken over the market and there is very little potential left. We do know that eventually the PI disappears as generic prices decline and GPs prescribe more generically. So there must be a cliff edge at some point when buyers cancel their orders for parallel imports.
Market activity for the generic Prasugrel Tabs 10mg 28 is even more interesting as it suggests sales activity peaks at some point and then declines. This may tie in with the point at which the generic it’s a low price at which manufacturers cancel manufacturing as they can no longer make a profit. In the price graph shown in the previous article, prices were low between December 2020 and December 2021. However, the peak in the market activity graph suggests that the point at which manufacturers withdrew support from this product was in October 2020 which is months before the minimum price was reached. This means that the unprofitable trigger price which caused manufacturers to exit, was £4.86 not £4.38.