CEO Message
Dear Shareholders,
As we mark our first year as a commercial enterprise we have made good progress introducing Silenor® to the market and advancing our commercial strategy by growing our prescription base, and securing favorable managed care coverage for the brand. In the third quarter, prescriptions rose 24% sequentially over the second quarter and more than 74% of commercial lives covered under managed care have access to Silenor for as little as $15 per prescription. Details regarding our third quarter financial results may be accessed here.
Importantly, we have developed and initiated the next phase of our commercial rollout for Silenor. Where the first year was primarily focused on prescribers and payers, for the balance of this year and into 2012 we are further optimizing our marketing mix and directing many of our efforts toward patient-facing initiatives. We believe this emphasis will drive revenue growth, allow us to leverage our resources in the most efficient and effective manner, significantly reduce our expenses and achieve a higher return on our investments in an effort to drive towards profitability.
Our research indicates that there is a clear correlation between frequency of details on a prescriber and the number of prescriptions generated by that prescriber. As a result, we have implemented a more focused sales force call plan that emphasizes frequent detailing to high potential prescribers, versus a broad geographic strategy, to increase their prescribing of Silenor. To this end we have redeployed a targeted field-based sales force to areas of high potential return while maintaining our visibility in other regions through a variety of promotional means.
We also believe that adding a comprehensive direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising campaign to the territories where productive sales reps are located will result in accelerated script growth. Studies have shown that the insomnia market is particularly responsive to DTC advertising, with television insomnia ads delivering the highest return on investment metrics among the major therapeutic areas. As well, an integrated campaign, consisting of concurrent TV and on-line ads, increases the likelihood by 2-3 times that a patient will ask their physician for a branded prescription. Importantly, Silenor is uniquely positioned for DTC, given its differentiated product profile as the only non-addictive prescription insomnia treatment that helps patients stay asleep. We are planning to launch our DTC program, which will include TV, print and on-line ads, in select markets in early 2012.
The third component of our commercial plan is to continue to maximize the potential for Silenor prescriptions to be filled through a combination of intelligent managed care contracting with payers and broad co-pay assistance and other programs to facilitate positive results at the pharmacy level.
In terms of incremental value drivers for Somaxon, we have made good progress toward a potential over-the-counter version of Silenor. We believe that Silenor’s characteristics, including its lack of addiction potential and its clinical efficacy and safety profile, make it an ideal candidate to be the first prescription insomnia therapy to be converted to an OTC product. We now have clear regulatory guidance from the FDA regarding a Silenor OTC program, and our partner P&G is evaluating its option to move forward with us in this regard.
In targeting other markets for Silenor, in June we joined forces with Paladin Labs to commercialize Silenor in Canada, So. America, and Africa. Paladin has indicated that they expect to file for Canadian regulatory approval by the end of the year.
Finally, our business development team is actively seeking rights to additional products or product candidates. Our objective is to leverage our commercial infrastructure and grow to become a commercially-driven, multi-product, specialty pharmaceutical company.
We are extremely excited about the redirected focus we have for our Silenor commercial program and are looking forward to reporting continued success. From everyone at Somaxon Pharmaceuticals, I thank you for your continued support.
Best regards,
Richard Pascoe
President & CEO
Somaxon Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
