U.S. sales of Austedo, which is also used to treat the movement disorder tardive dyskinesia, are forecast by the world?s largest generic drugmaker to rise to $650 million in 2020 from $412 million last year.
"We have been working on launching it in China," CEO Kare Schultz said, noting Austedo was one of 38 drugs to receive a waiver excluding it from expensive Phase 3 clinical trials in China in order to receive regulatory approval. "We hope to get an approval this year."
Teva's financial forecasts for 2020 do not include Austedo sales in China as they are not expected to be significant in the near term.
"A medication like Austedo, which is a highly, highly sophisticated specialty medication ... never penetrates broadly the first years in China," said Schultz. "Long term when you build a position in China, typically you grow the sales slowly but steadily and then they last longer than they do in other markets."
He said Teva has not been impacted by the coronavirus outbreak in China, where its business is limited to a small commercial operation.
"From a financial point of view we don't have any revenues to lose because we don't have them in the first place," he said, though Teva does buy some raw material in China. "For a while now we have had a war room on coronavirus, making sure we can secure alternative supplies of raw materials ... so we don't estimate right now it will have any operational effect on our business."
Schultz attributed volatility in Teva's shares in the past year to opioid lawsuits in the U.S., where attorney generals of four states agreed last year on a proposed settlement under which Teva would provide $23 billion worth of generic Suboxone and pay $250 million in cash over 10 years.
Teva has expressed optimism this framework for a settlement will be finalised soon.
By Tova Cohen
