Germany's Schwarz Pharma expects peak annual sales of 350 million euros ($426 million) for a Parkinson's disease treatment it hopes to have on the market in 2006, the company's chief told a newspaper on Sunday.
Patrick Schwarz-Schuette told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung the company would file for approval for rotigotine this summer and expected to have it on the market about 15 months later.
He said a second variation could generate additional sales of 200 million euros from 2007.
In February Schwarz said 2003 net profit surged on strong sales of its copy of AstraZeneca's Prilosec ulcer treatment, but forecast a sharp decline in earnings this year due to growing competition.
"This year we will reach marginally positive earnings and plan the same for 2005," CEO Schwarz-Schuette said in the article.
Schwarz, a mid-size drug-maker, was until August the only company allowed to sell a generic copy of Prilosec, thanks to a US court ruling that its version did not infringe AstraZeneca's patents.
But that windfall was severely hit by competition to the drug which emerged later and caused Schwarz to more than halve its 2003 net profit guidance.