3 month-lasting birth control injection withdraws from Korea

Pfizer’s Sayana injection drops license before PMS expires

Underperforming sales generating only KRW 200 million with low public awareness

Pfizer’s contraceptive injection Sayana (medroxyprogesterone acetate) initially received the public’s limelight for the convenience of injecting once every three months, but it has decided to withdraw from the South Korean market.

 

The injection even extended the post-marketing surveillance (PMS) period and showed its commitment to stay in the South Korean market, but the company has made a decision to pull out from the market before its PMS ends in next January.

 

The underperforming sales seems to have affected the decision.

 

On Nov.

 

23, Pfizer Pharmaceutical Korea has dropped the marketing license on Sayana injection.

 

Approved by the health authority in January 2013, the contraceptive injection was evaluated to have significantly improved the convenience, compared to other female contraceptive drugs, by lessening the administration frequency as it is subcutaneously injected once every three months (12 weeks to 14 weeks).

 

Besides the contraceptive function, the injection is indicated to control the pain induced by endometriosis.

 

Regardless of improved convenience, the market’s reaction to the injection was cold.

 

As a prescription drug, raising the public awareness in the new contraceptive injection was strictly limited.

 

Also the short recommended duration of administration up to maximum two years, and adverse reactions like elytrorrhagia could have affected the sluggish sales growth as well.

 

According to IQVIA, the injection sales marked 250 million won and 210 million won in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

 

Approved as a new drug, the injection was to run PMS until Jan.

 

28, 2019, but Pfizer requested the number of cases to be reduced from 600 to 300 in 2018.

 

The health authority denied the request, and the PMS period was extended for two years, expiring in January next year.

 

Ultimately, the injection could not finish the PMS.

 

Pfizer has sent out a notice to distributors last October explaining the supply suspension would be prolonged due to the unstable manufacturing.

 

As Sayana withdraws from the South Korean market, now the contraceptive drugs available in the country would be only oral options.