For Moderate To Severe Crohn's Disease, Surveyed Gastroenterologists Indicate That Higher Maintenance Of Remission Is A Top Unmet Need

BURLINGTON, Mass., June 27, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that a therapy that enables a greater percentage of patients to maintain remission is one of the attributes that most influences surveyed U.S. and European gastroenterologists' prescribing decisions in moderate to severe Crohn's disease (CD). Additionally, enabling a greater percentage of patients to maintain remission is one of the greatest unmet needs in moderate to severe CD. However, based on clinical data and the opinions of interviewed thought leaders, no emerging therapies are poised to fulfill this unmet need.

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The DecisionBase 2013 report entitled Crohn's Disease (Moderate to Severe): Amid Unmet Need for Improved Induction and Maintenance Therapies, What Magnitude of Improvement Do Surveyed Gastroenterologists and Payers Expect of a Novel Therapy? also finds that surveyed U.S. managed care organization (MCO) pharmacy directors are particularly willing to grant favorable formulary status to new moderate to severe CD therapies that offer improved effect on induction of remission and on maintenance of remission over currently available treatment options. Nonetheless, although emerging therapies for moderate to severe CD hold promise, none are expected to match the clinical improvement over current therapies required by surveyed U.S. payers for widespread inclusion on MCO formularies.

The report also finds that surveyed U.S. gastroenterologists would prescribe Takeda's emerging cell adhesion molecule inhibitor vedolizumab to a median 10 percent of their total drug-treated CD patients. Although Decision Resources forecasts that vedolizumab will earn a substantially lower patient share in the maintenance treatment setting given the assumption that it will be used primarily after failure with TNF-alpha inhibitors, other factors will contribute to vedolizumab being positioned slightly better than other emerging biologics to capture patient share in the TNF-refractory CD population.

"Several factors including vedolizumab's earlier market entry than Janssen's Stelara, promising efficacy as a maintenance therapy in Phase III clinical trials, and expected lower price than Stelara indicate that vedolizumab will be slightly better positioned to capture uptake in the TNF-refractory CD population," said Decision Resources Business Insights Analyst Kathryn Beane.

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SOURCE Decision Resources