Current And Emerging Drugs Have No Advantage Over Enbrel In Inhibiting/Slowing The Progression Of Rheumatoid Arthritis

Main Category: Arthritis
Article Date: 08 Apr 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms focusing on pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that a drug's effect on inhibiting/slowing the progression of structural damage and reducing the signs and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis during the first year of treatment are the attributes that most influence surveyed rheumatologists' prescribing decisions in the treatment of the disease. Clinical data and expert opinion shows that current and emerging therapies have no advantage in these attributes over the market sales leader, Amgen/Wyeth/Takeda's Enbrel.

The new report entitled Rheumatoid Arthritis: Competitive, Crowded Market Sets the Bar High for Novel Agents finds that, through 2016, there are no therapies in development that will displace Enbrel as the clinical gold standard treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. While some therapies in development for the disease hold promise, most have efficacy, safety and tolerability, and/or delivery features that are inferior when compared with Enbrel.

The overall efficacy of emerging therapies such as Centocor/Schering-Plough/Mitsubishi Tanabe/Janssen's golimumab and Biogen Idec/Genentech/Roche's ocrelizumab is comparable to that of Enbrel, while the overall safety and tolerability for emerging therapies that include ocrelizumab and UCB's Cimzia are also comparable to that of Enbrel. However, the currently available clinical data for golimumab, ocrelizumab and Cimzia is not as robust or extensive as those available for Enbrel.

"While emerging therapies such as golimumab and Cimzia offer superior delivery to that of Enbrel due to improved dosing frequencies, these agents' overall efficacy, safety and tolerability, respectively, are inferior to those of Enbrel-and efficacy, safety and tolerability are weighted more heavily by surveyed rheumatologists as key drivers of prescribing decisions," said Cindy Mundy, Ph.D., director at Decision Resources. "As a result, the improvements in dosing frequency that golimumab and Cimzia offer over Enbrel are not sufficient to propel either agent to the position of future gold standard."

About the Report

Rheumatoid Arthritis: Competitive, Crowded Market Sets the Bar High for Novel Agents is a DecisionBase 2008 report from Decision Resources. DecisionBase 2008 combines market forecasts with clinical and commercial end points to assess market share projections in 35 indications. These outputs are driven by quantitative and qualitative primary research. DecisionBase 2008 provides detailed market share, patient share, and price-per-day projections for emerging drugs in development. The market share projections are based on prescriber surveys that compare physicians' expectations of a potential target product profile with an emerging product profile of the leading drugs in development.

The report can be purchased by contacting Decision Resources. Members of the media may request an interview with an analyst.

About Decision Resources

Decision Resources, Inc. (http://www.decisionresources.com) is a world leader in market research publications, advisory services, and consulting designed to help clients shape strategy, allocate resources, and master their chosen markets. Decision Resources is a Decision Resources, Inc. company.

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