In the Psoriasis Drug Market, Continued Uptake of Janssen's Stelara and the Launch of Emerging Systemic Therapies Will Drive Sales Growth to Nearly $9.2 Billion in 2022

BURLINGTON, Mass., Oct. 21, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that the psoriasis drug market will experience substantial growth over the next decade as sales increase from $5.5 billion in 2012 to nearly $9.2 billion in 2022 in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and Japan.

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The Pharmacor advisory service entitled Psoriasis finds that the continued uptake of Janssen's interleukin 12/23 inhibitor Stelara, which is expected to experience first-line biologic use ahead of the TNF-alpha inhibitors in the second half of the 2012-2022 forecast period, will drive sales growth. Stelara is forecast to achieve sales of $2.2 billion in 2022, accounting for 24 percent of total psoriasis sales. The launches and uptake of several emerging agents—the IL-17 inhibitors (Novartis's secukinumab, Eli Lilly's ixekizumab, and Amgen/AstraZeneca/Kyowa Hakko Kirin's brodalumab) as well as Pfizer's Janus kinase inhibitor Xeljanz—will also drive sales through 2022. 

The findings also reveal that the TNF-alpha inhibitors, particularly AbbVie/Eisai's Humira, which has displaced Amgen/Stiefel/Pfizer/Takeda's Enbrel as the preferred first-line biologic, will continue to dominate as first-line biologic agents in the first half of our forecast. However, dermatologists will increasingly turn to Stelara for their biologic-naive patients, owing to the drug's favorable risk/benefit profile. This is supported by years of postmarketing safety data and will drive sales in the second half of the 2012-2022 forecast period. Beginning in 2014, the TNF-alpha inhibitors and Stelara will experience competition from emerging biologics and oral agents with novel mechanisms of action. Although concerns about their undefined safety profiles will restrict uptake initially, the emerging IL-17 inhibitors, Xeljanz, and Merck's IL-23 inhibitor MK-3222, will increase competition within the TNF-alpha-refractory space. Celgene's oral phosphodiesterase-4 inhibitor apremilast—which is also poised to enter the market in 2014—may see use in earlier lines of therapy than the emerging biologics and Xeljanz.

"Of the emerging systemic agents, the three IL-17 inhibitors—secukinumab, ixekizumab, and brodalumab—as well as MK-3222, have shown the most impressive efficacy. The efficacy of ixekizumab and brodalumab in Phase II clinical trials appears comparable to the most effective biologic for psoriasis, Janssen/Merck/Mitsubishi Tanabe's Remicade, and Phase III clinical trial data for secukinumab suggests impressive efficacy comparable to the two other agents in this drug class," said Decision Resources Business Insights Analyst Kathryn Beane. "Nevertheless, reservations about these agents' novel mechanisms of action and relatively limited safety profiles will mean that physicians will reserve these drugs initially for patients who have failed TNF-alpha inhibitors and Stelara."

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