It’s official: Pfizer’s Exubera inhaled insulin experiment is over.

Sales of the diabetes drug were a complete failure. Some might even think of them as non-existent, considering that Pfizer paid Sanofi-Aventis $1.3 billion to acquire exclusive worldwide rights to market the insulin, yet only generated $4 million in sales for Q2 2007.  The company’s website for the drug acknowledged that “too few patients are taking Exubera.”

Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler told shareholders in an October 18, 2007 company press release that, “[d]espite our best efforts, Exubera has failed to gain the acceptance of patients and physicians. We have therefore concluded that further investment in this product is unwarranted.”

It cost Pfizer a whopping $2.8 billion in pre-tax charges to stop Exubera sales, according to an SEC filing that the company made.

According to Pfizer CFO Frank D’Amelio, the drugmaker had approximately $661 million of Exubera inventory.  That’s a staggering amount of unsold insulin.

Although Pfizer’s website for Exubera emphasized that the company’s decision to stop selling the diabetes drug “was not based on any safety problems with Exubera” and that it remains “a safe and effective medicine,” that conclusion remains subject to debate among some endocrinologists and diabetics.

Spain’s National Health System decided to fund the cost of Exubera insulin inhalers for diabetics.

Patients will pay no more than 3€ for the Pfizer inhaled insulin, and a new report says that pharmacies in Spain now have the drug in stock.

Alex Berenson, the New York Times business reporter who covers the pharmaceutical industry, has a new article on how Pfizer’s Exubera inhaled insulin sales are “lagging.”

The analysis discovered that many Wall Street analysts have downgraded their earnings estimates for Pfizer’s diabetes sales.

This blog hazards a guess that some of those analysts have read the research and posts here, discovering that quite a few doctors, insurers, and diabetics do not support Exubera use.

Berenson cites a February 2007 study by Citigroup’s drug industry analyst team which found that after surveying some 35 doctors, “more than half said they were concerned about Exubera’s safety. They were also concerned about its price and the bulkiness of the Exubera inhaler.”

Last July, this blog reported that Harvard Pilgrim’s Health Care’s pharmacy director was shocked that insurers would cover Exubera’s increased cost.

“I don’t get who the target market is — people with unlimited drug coverage who like gadgets?,” said Dr. Neil Minkoff, the insurer’s pharmacy director.

The two largest health insurance companies in the country, Wellpoint (which manages many Blue Cross / Blue Shield plans) and Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare, list “Exubera in the third tier of their drug formularies. Co-pays at that level run $40 to $50 per prescription at United-Healthcare.”

Berenson also notes that sales of Type-2 diabetes drugs like Byetta and Januvia have grown rapidly compared to Pfizer’s Exubera sales

Another reporter looked into Exubera sales recently, and found that Pfizer’s sales of Exubera inhaled insulin are pretty bad.

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In her report, Kathryn Barrett of Virginia station WVEC concluded that:

Whether it’s a lack of marketing, or less of a need that anticipated, this weapon against diabetes is gathering dust.

Barrett mentioned Exubera’s expensive cost and problematic insurance coverage under drug formulary plans.

Not to be overlooked, either, was an assessment that Kim Moloney, a nurse and diabetes educator at the Strelitz Diabetes Institutes at the Eastern Virginia Medical School, drew for Barrett.

Perhaps the biggest reason for Exubera’s less than stellar sales, according to Moloney, may just be that “many diabetics are just used to injections.”

A fascinating new by a diabetic reporter was just published, and it should cause Pfizer, Inc. (NYSE:PFE) plenty of worries. She expressed considerable disappointment handling an Exubera inhaler, concluding that it “was large and awkward.”

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And those might be the kindest words of her commentary.

Having taken insulin injections for 21 years, Meredith Cummings tells her Alabama readers in the Tuscaloosa News that she gave herself a “pep talk” to prepare for a training session and meeting at her physician’s office, “in case my doctor suddenly became a pushy Exubera spokesman.”

Last week she wrote about waiting for the results of her Exubera spirometry test.

Then, she described the shock and surprise (not awe) that she experienced upon seeing her doctor with the pulmonary drug delivery device:

He took out the inhaler, which was much larger than I thought it would be. When I tell people that I’m trying the new inhaled insulin, they assume that it looks like an asthmatic inhaler, small and portable. But if I wanted to fit this in my purse — unless my purse happened to be the size of a small cat — well, good luck.

When I held the inhaler’s blue handle, I felt more like I was holding a light saber from “Star Wars” than an inhaler, and that my doctor and I should have a duel. (emphasis added)

Then came the realization that she had to “figure out how to pay for the inhaler” and the Exubera blister packs, and that it might be expensive. That’s because, Cummings explained, “getting people off insulin shots onto inhaled insulin is big business.”

She closed with a plea to Pfizer and its Exubera drug sales force to send her some Exubera samples before her next column.