At what point is Regeneron just throwing good money after bad?

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has squeezed a lifetime of commercial experience into just four years. In 2015, it won approval for a drug called Praluent that had demonstrated unprecedented effects on bad cholesterol. The company set a payer-alienating price of more than $14,000 a year, slashed the cost by 60% to appease insurers, and is now sitting on a product that accounts for less than 4% of its revenue.

Now, according to at least one analyst, the company might be better served by getting out of the business altogether.

As SVB Leerink’s Geoffrey Porges points out, a Regeneron rival called the Medicines Company looks poised to win a 2020 approval for a drug that has a Praluent-like effect on cholesterol but can be dosed twice a year, rather than every two weeks. Praluent hasn’t exactly been a commercial success — last quarter, the drug brought in $73.7 million, which is .27% more than it made in the same period last year — and thus Regeneron might be wise to stop spending its finite cash on marketing and just accept that the moment has passed, according to Porges.