The question isn’t whether Avandia scrips will plummet, it’s how far and how fast. Whatever the rate, the main beneficiary looks to be Merck. That’s not surprising either, since the drugmaker’s relatively new Januvia diabetes pill is catching on fairly quicky with doctors and, so far, doesn’t seem to have generated side-effect concerns.

And so Barbara Ryan, an analyst at Deutsche Banc who tracks big pharma stocks, figures that
the Avandia fiasco is going to be a boon for Merck. In an investor note earlier today, she reminds us that her current estimate of Januvia sales in 2010 is $2 billion.

But by 2010, Ryan writes that the Avandia fallout could translate into “roughly $1 billion in incremental revenues.” In other words, twice as much. Not sure what happens to this calculation if Novartis ever gets Galvus out the door, but you can be certain Dan Vasella is kicking himself, again.

[tags]Avandia, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck[/tags]