The Launch of Febuxostat and the Anticipated Launches of Lesinurad and Ulodesine for the Treatment of Gout are Creating a Depth of New Clinical Data and Treatment Options in What Had Been a Dormant Therapy Area for Decades
Decision Resources
Decision Resources, one of the world’s leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that the launch of febuxostat (Takeda’s Uloric, Ipsen/Menarini’s Adenuric, Teijin’s Feburic) in 2009 and anticipated launches of AstraZeneca’s lesinurad and BioCryst’s ulodesine for the treatment of gout are creating a depth of new clinical data and treatment options in what had been a dormant therapy area for decades.
The Pharmacor report entitled forecasts that the chronic gout segment of the gout market will double from $500 million in 2011 to more than $1 billion in 2021 in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and Japan. Emerging urate-lowering drugs will compete for the remaining gout patients who are unable to meet target serum uric acid on allopurinol (Prometheus Laboratories/GlaxoSmithKline’s Zyloprim/Zyloric, generics) or febuxostat.
“The launch of lesinurad will provide a new uricosuric drug positioned to be used in combination with allopurinol,” said Decision Resources Analyst Gideon Heap, M.Sc. “Lesinurad has a more favorable safety profile than existing uricosurics and will become the market-leading urate-lowering drug by 2018.”
The report also finds that the acute gout segment of the gout market will grow at a steady 5.3 percent annual rate over the next decade, reaching $800 million in 2021. The only emerging therapy set to reach the acute gout market during the forecast period is Novartis’s interleukin-1 inhibitor canakinumab.
“Canakinumab, a monoclonal antibody, will provide relief to a small niche of patients with severe gout, but it will not significantly affect the acute gout landscape owing to its high price,” Mr. Heap said.
Emerging therapies are positioned as second- or later-line drugs for the hard-to-treat gout patients who are typically under the care of specialist rheumatologists. Savient’s Krystexxa (pegloticase) launched in the United States in February 2011 for the small population of patients with chronic tophaceous gout but, to date, has failed to earn substantial sales, due to its high price and tendency to induce neutralizing antibodies which limit the duration of effect.
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