Release issued 8th May 2008

May 8, 2008, Waltham, Mass. Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that a drug's effect on overall survival is the attribute that most influences surveyed hematologists' prescribing decisions in Relapsed Multiple Myeloma treatment. Clinical data and expert opinion show that current and emerging therapies have not yet demonstrated an advantage in this attribute over the market sales-leader, Millennium Pharmaceuticals/Johnson & Johnson's Velcade.

The new report entitled Multiple Myeloma: Physicians Seek an Agent with Improved Overall Survival for Patients with Relapsed Disease finds that an emerging agent administered in combination with Velcade that improves median overall survival compared to treatment with Velcade alone would earn a 45 percent patient share in Multiple Myeloma, according to surveyed hematologists. Although Velcade is the Multiple Myeloma market sales-leader, the clinical gold standard treatment for relapsed disease is Lenalidomide/Dexamethasone (Celgene's Revlimid, Merck's Decadron, generics) owing to its superiority in both efficacy and delivery.

"While overall survival is considered to be the most important indicator of efficacy by physicians who treat oncology patients, Lenalidomide/Dexamethasone has clearly demonstrated an improvement in other efficacy parameters and therefore earns clinical gold-standard status," said Clair Gricks, Ph.D., analyst at Decision Resources.

About the Report
Multiple Myeloma: Physicians Seek an Agent with Improved Overall Survival for Patients with Relapsed Disease 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. (www.decisionresources.com ) is a world leader in 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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