Greater Reduction in Pain Intensity and a Greater Patient Responder Rate are the Top Two Areas of Unmet Need in the Treatment of Painful Diabetic Neuropathy

BURLINGTON, Mass., Feb. 6, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Decision Resources Group finds that greater reduction in pain intensity and a greater patient responder rate (measured by the percentage of patients reporting at least 30 percent or at least 50 percent reduction in pain intensity from baseline) are the top two areas of unmet need in painful diabetic neuropathy (PDN) treatment. Additionally, because PDN is a chronic pain condition that requires prolonged treatment, maintenance of pain relief over the long-term is critical but often difficult to achieve with current treatments. Novel pain therapies able to address these needs would be well-positioned for both favorable formulary inclusion and physician uptake.

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Other key findings from the DecisionBase report entitled Painful Diabetic Neuropathy: In an Increasingly Generic Market, Replete with Well-Established Oral Therapies, What Drug Development Opportunities Remain?:

• Several emerging therapies poised to enter the PDN market have the potential to provide improvements in safety and tolerability and/or delivery. Most notably, Acorda Therapeutics' capsaicin topical solution offers a reduced risk for systemic side effects such as dizziness and nausea that plague oral therapies and has competitive advantages in delivery, if pivotal Phase III data support that the agent's five-minute application time provides three-month analgesic efficacy.
• Surveyed U.S. managed care organization pharmacy directors are receptive to new PDN therapies that offer substantial improvements over current therapies with regard to the percentage of patients responding to treatment and the percentage of patients reporting global improvement. However, the level of expected clinical improvement is unlikely to be met by late-stage emerging therapies in development for PDN.
• Surveyed U.S. neurologists expect to prescribe Pfizer's Lyrica CR (pregabalin controlled-release) to 20 percent of their PDN patients. Additionally, Decision Resources Group's analysis for PDN indicates a high prescribing likelihood among surveyed U.S. neurologists for a target product profile similar to that of Lyrica CR.

Comments from Decision Resources Group Analyst Andrea Buurma:

• "Broadly speaking, current neuropathic pain therapies are, at best, able to achieve 50 percent pain relief in 50 percent of patients. And since no one therapy can completely alleviate the pain associated with PDN, greater analgesic efficacy continues to be a key area of unmet need and is a focus for product differentiation in PDN as well as the broader neuropathic pain market."
• "Unfortunately, clinical trial data and the opinions of interviewed experts suggest that no near-term emerging therapies are expected to offer greater analgesic efficacy than current first-line treatments. Instead, drug-development efforts to date have been targeted towards improvements in tolerability and/or delivery."

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Decision Resources Group
Christopher Comfort
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SOURCE Decision Resources Group