Gout is a painful condition, as sufferers will be all too aware, and it was causing investors in Hikma Pharmaceuticals considerable discomfort yesterday. The FTSE 100 company issued a profit warning concerning its Mitigare generic product, which was launched against the market leader in the United States in January.
That leader is Takeda, which makes a product called Colcrys. Both drugs are based on a plant-derived product called colchicine. The matter went through the US courts, with Takeda also taking aggressive action on pricing to try to keep Hikma out of a market that some calculate is worth $700 million a year.
Meanwhile, Hikma has experienced some delays in getting its own compound to market. The result is that sales of Mitigare, which analysts had