Sage Therapeutics is doubling down on the “blockbuster potential” of its postpartum depression drug Zurzuvae, expanding professional promotions and taking steps toward a direct-to-consumer launch after a series of disappointments.
It’s already scaled up in-person and non-personal promotions to OB-GYNs, primary care physicians and psychiatrists who are already writing scripts, and recently launched the Zurzuvae PPD consumer website, the company said.
Last week, Sage terminated a Parkinson’s program after a Phase 2 failure for another candidate. Eight months earlier, the FDA rejected zuranolone to treat major depression on the same day it was approved for PPD.
Sage’s share of Zurzuvae sales — it splits revenue with development partner Biogen — was $6.2 million in its first three months on the market, the company reported Thursday. So far, 700 prescriptions have been delivered to patients, with 1,200 written in total.
Chris Benecchi“The first step in this is making sure we have a very well-educated and prepared clinician audience so that when patients come in and ask for the medication by name, they’re ready to effectively prescribe the medications,” Sage’s chief commercial officer Chris Benecchi said on Thursday’s investor call.
Sage is also advancing coverage with payers, including two unnamed national pharmacy benefit managers (Sage declined to name them after a follow-up query from Endpoints News) which now have published policies for Zurzuvae, with a third “in conversations,” and 65% of commercial lives now covered in PPD. An estimated 1 in 8 new mothers, about 500,000 women in the US, experience PPD every year.
Zurzuvae’s list price is $15,900 for the 14-day once-daily oral treatment. In Q1, the majority of prescriptions were covered by commercial or government insurers, and a spokesperson added the majority of commercially insured patients used Sage’s Zurzuvae savings card and “paid no copay.”
Kimi IguchiSage declined to offer guidance on gross-to-net revenue during the Q1 report, but CFO Kimi Iguchi said because Zurvuvae is a novel drug and the only oral treatment approved for PPD, “we do not anticipate the type of discounting we see for other branded CNS agents.” With current cash ($717 million), funding from ongoing collaborations and estimated sales, she said Sage is funded into 2026.
William Blair analysts remained cautious after the Q1 reporting, writing in a note: “We view Zurzuvae’s PPD approval with a commercially challenging label and no path forward in MDD as a difficult position for the company.” It plans to await results in Huntington’s disease and Alzheimer’s before reassessing.
While Sage executives spent the bulk of the Q1 investor call talking about the initial success of Zurzuvae, they did acknowledge disappointment in the dalzanemdor study fail in Parkinson’s.
Medical chief Laura Gault held out hope for upcoming readouts for dalzanemdor studies in Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s, pointing out the Parkinson’s results are “not necessarily predictive” of the drug’s potential in the other conditions with “very distinct underlying pathophysiology and symptomatology.”