J&J’s move to cut Rem­i­cade price cost some big bucks, but guard­ed against Pfiz­er’s copy­cat

An­a­lysts were quick to ze­ro in on an 8.5% drop in J&J’s US Rem­i­cade rev­enue dur­ing the fourth quar­ter.

The phar­ma con­glom­er­ate has squared off against Pfiz­er’s biosim­i­lar here, but sparked a law­suit as its ma­jor league ri­val com­plained that J&J was us­ing “ex­clu­sion­ary con­tracts” that barred them from reach­ing most pa­tients. The con­test be­tween the two has be­come a test case for the way brand­ed man­u­fac­tur­ers plan to fight the wave of copy­cats com­ing in­to the mar­ket. And the re­sults in the J&J/Pfiz­er match could put a chill on near-term ex­pec­ta­tions for the knock­offs.

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