Psoriatic Arthritis Drug Market

[Fred]

Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that, in 2011, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) inhibitors dominated sales in the psoriatic arthritis (PsA) drug market, contributing to 89 percent of the nearly $1.7 billion PsA market in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and Japan.

The upcoming Pharmacor advisory service entitled Psoriatic Arthritis, which will be published soon, finds that the TNF-alpha inhibitor etanercept (Amgen/Pfizer/Takeda's Enbrel) was the 2011 market leader, leading by a small margin over adalimumab (Abbott/Eisai's Humira). Decision Resources expects Humira to displace Enbrel as the sales leader in 2012, with its patient share surpassing that of Enbrel in 2013.

"Interviewed thought leaders believe that Humira's superior efficacy on skin symptoms over Enbrel, its excellent efficacy on joint symptoms, twice-monthly dosing and years of physician experience for treating PsA will continue to drive its uptake in this market," said Decision Resources Analyst Bingnan Kang, Ph.D.

The findings also reveal that methotrexate (Dava Pharmaceuticals' Rheumatrex, generics) was the patient-share leader in 2011 but comprised only 4 percent of total PsA sales, owing to the availability of inexpensive generics. Other conventional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs are also highly genericized and represented only a small percentage (less than 6 percent) of market sales in 2011.

Over the next decade, four branded therapies will enter the market and will represent over one-third of the total PsA market in 2021. Of these agents, three emerging therapies offer novel mechanisms of action--the interleukin-12/23 inhibitor ustekinumab (Janssen's Stelara), the selective costimulation inhibitor abatacept (Bristol-Myers Squibb/Ono Pharmaceutical's Orencia) and the phosphadiesterase-4 inhibitor apremilast (Celgene). During this time, the TNF-alpha inhibitor certolizumab pegol (UCB/Astellas's Cimzia) will also enter the PsA market.

Source: http://www.marketwatch.com

[Caroline]

Is it ok to suspect that, as all are inhibitors, all switch off something in your body?