Lilly: postive P3 Arxxant results

I don't know how I missed this one:

Last week, Lilly released information on Arxxant - a oral small molecule PKC-beta inhibitor. The data look positive: Arxxant patients were about half as likely to have deteriorated vision due to diabetes complications than placebo patients. No toxicity was reported.

PKC - beta has been linked to blood vessel damage to the nerves, eyes, and kidneys of diabetes patients. The application under trial was diabtes retinopathy, a disease affecting ~4M Americans.

Analyst estimates for peak Arxxant sales (in 2010) range from $200M to $650M.

I don't know Lilly's target revenue per patient, but if the US market represents half of the world market (we're fatter), it seems like peak sales are likely to be higher given a modest price and assuming continuous, chronic dosing (i.e. an accumulating patient base - similar to the Gleevec effect.)