The emergence of Trulance, an alternative to Ironwood's and Allergan's Linzess, is worrying market analysts about Ironwood's future prospects, Seeking Alpha reports.
Here's what you should know:
1. Ironwood and Allergan partnered to develop and sell Linzess, a chronic idiopathic constipation and irritable bowel syndrome with constipation drug. Linzess has been on the market since 2012, quickly surpassing the market leader because of its reduced adverse event rate. However, Seeking Alpha believes Synergy Pharmaceuticals' Trulance has the potential to do the same to Linzess.
2. Trulance is rapidly growing in popularity. The CIC and IBS-C market is approximately 48 million strong, yet 95 percent of those people do not use a branded therapy. A study Synergy conducted states that 59 percent of patients on branded therapy are dissatisfied with Linzess.
Seeking Alpha claims the survey is indicative of patients' desire to switch to a superior market alternative such as Trulance. Trulance has already seen significant growth since its market launch on March 20.
Syngery states that approximately 48 percent of its users are ex-Linzess users and that 52 percent came from the over-the-counter market. .
3. Ironwood's CEO said it was "destocking" its Linzess inventory which contributed to decreased sales from the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2016 to the first quarter of fiscal year 2017. Seeking Alpha believes the destocking could be directly related to the emergence of Syngery's Trulance.
4. Seeking Alpha believes Trulance could make Syngery an "attractive" acquisition target, which would create significant competition for Ironwood.