Shire sees steady Vyvanse sales growth

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shire Plc (SHP.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) expects Vyvanse, its recently launched attention deficient hyperactivity disorder drug, to capture 1 percent of the U.S. market each month, eventually achieving a share of about 30 percent, the company's chief executive said on Monday.

As of last week, Vyvanse held a 5.5 percent U.S. market share after 17 weeks of promotion, Matthew Emmens, CEO of the U.K.-based specialty pharmaceuticals company, said at the Reuters Health Summit in New York.

He said Shire expects it will take four or five years for Vyvanse sales to peak in the United States, with sales growing steadily despite the expected launch in April 2009 of a generic version of Shire's market-leading ADHD drug, Adderall XR.

Vyvanse and Adderall XR are both stimulants, but Shire says its newer drug is longer-acting, has a more consistent delivery, and is less open to abuse because it is not metabolized until it reaches the stomach.

Emmens said Shire is "a little ahead of where we expected to be" in terms of having Vyvanse added to the formularies of health-care payers. Shire's goal is to achieve 85 percent coverage within 18 months. "We are about one-third of the way we need to go," the CEO said.