Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Vernon Bernardino – Rodman & Renshaw.
Vernon Bernardino – Rodman & Renshaw
I’m wondering if you could go over what factors drove sales of Zevalin in second quarter that were later than sales in the first quarter?
James Bianco
What factors drove sales?
Vernon Bernardino – Rodman & Renshaw
Yes, such that they were lighter than the recorded net sales in the first quarter.
James Bianco
Sales in Q2 were less than sales in Q1 but sales in Q2 were comparable to sales in Q2 period they were pretty comparable year over year so if you looked at, for example, 2007 if you look at Biogen Idec their Q2 sales were lighter than their Q1 sales, their Q3 sales were higher than their Q2 sales and Q4 sales were higher than the Q3. That may just have to do with seasonality and whatever variances, it’s not like it was growing quarter over quarter for the prior history.
The important point that Craig noted on the call was that coming into June if you’re a hospital or if you’re an oncology practice you’re not going to take the chance on the $22,000 regiment not knowing if a week later it’s going to be reimbursable. We were all concerned that Q2 was going to be really soft when in fact we were pretty pleased that attract pretty much 2007 rates despite the reimbursement hurdles then as you heard really rebounded quite nicely in July and continuing on that trend in August.
We have the issue of reimbursement behind us which was a big win for this product for patients and for the company giving us an 18 month period where in the hospital outpatient setting that reimbursement rate now is whatever their cost and charge ratio is per hospital so their not going to lose money on it and the integrated oncology practice setting it’s 95% of AWT so they will make money on it.
I think importantly we have heard that we’ve seen the proposed ruling from CMS that they have agreed to in the hospital outpatient setting to consider an ASP methodology for reimbursement and if we’re successful getting that which we are confident that CMS will in fact adopt a ruling so that in 2010 after this 18 month period of legislation expires that in the hospital outpatient setting Zevalin will be reimbursed just like Rituximab.
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