The Asthma Market Is Forecast to Remain Stable over the Next Decade, Despite Generic Erosion of Market Leading Asthma Therapies

BURLINGTON, Mass., Oct. 8, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Decision Resources Group finds that the market for asthma will remain stable, increasing slightly from $15.1 billion in 2013 to $16.1 billion in 2023 in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Japan. As the current market leaders, which includes GlaxoSmithKline's Advair/Seretide/Adoair, AstraZeneca's Symbicort, and Merck/Kyorin's Singulair undergo generic erosion, asthma sales in later years will be driven by uptake of novel therapies. These novel therapies include the once-daily long-acting beta2 agonist (LABA)/inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) combination GlaxoSmithKline/Theravance's Breo/Relvar, Boehringer Ingelheim/Pfizer's Spiriva (the first LAMA approved for the treatment of asthma), and five novel anticytokine agents—GlaxoSmithKline's Bosatria, Teva's Cinquil, AstraZeneca/Kyowa Hakko Kirin's benralizumab, Roche/Chugai's lebrikizumab, and AstraZeneca's tralokinumab.

Other key findings from the Pharmacor report entitled Asthma:

• New market potential in underserved asthma population: Emerging anticytokines that are predicted to launch during the next decade will serve part of the unmet need in the severe, refractory asthma population, which is currently served by only systemic steroids and the one currently available biologic Roche/Novartis's Xolair. The launch of five novel biologics between 2015 and 2019 are forecast to almost double sales of biologics over the forecast period from just over $1.2 billion in 2013 to approximately $2.4 billion in 2023. 
• LAMA, a new class of drugs for asthma: Spiriva, a blockbuster long-acting muscarinic antagonist (LAMA) in COPD, won an additional license for asthma in the European market in September 2014 and is projected to be approved for this indication in both the U.S. and Japan in 2015. Even though the drug is already used off-label for asthma, particularly in more severe patients, these new regulatory approvals in asthma are expected to spur the drug's usage, and sales are expected to increase substantially at an 8.8 percent annual growth rate in this market.

Comments from Decision Resources Group Analyst Eun-Jin Yang, Ph.D.:

• "Over the course of the next decade, the landscape of the asthma market will undergo a number of changes. On one hand, the market will experience a rise of new classes of innovative drugs that target small subpopulations of severe asthma patients, which will contribute to sales. On the other, the modestly cheaper branded-generic, generic, and biosimilar versions of current market leaders will expand the accessibility of conventional asthma therapies to a greater number of asthma patients. However, this will ultimately constrain the sales potential of the overall asthma market."
• "Launch of the first anti-interleukin-5 agent specifically targeting severe asthma patients with high levels of eosinophils will mean not only addressing the unmet needs of severe asthma patients who are refractory to available asthma therapies but also mark the beginning of a new era of more personalized medicine in the heterogeneous asthma patient population with a biomarker-driven therapeutic approach. Uptake of these expensive biological therapies, including anti-IL-5 and anti-IL-13 agents, will partly rely on the validity and ease of use of their corresponding biomarker tests and the reimbursement of such tests."

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SOURCE Decision Resources Group