Release issued 23rd June 2009

Emerging combination products from Glaxosmithkline/Theravance, Boehringer Ingelheim and Novartis will drive growth, according to a new report from Decision Resources
 
June 23, 2009-Waltham, Mass. - Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that a 28 percent increase in the diagnosed prevalent population will drive growth in the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) drug market in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and Japan. Despite market constraints that include currently low diagnosis rates, pricing and reimbursement restrictions and challenging regulatory landscapes, the COPD drug market will grow by nearly $4.3 billion from 2008 to 2018.
 
The new Pharmacor report entitled Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease finds that maintenance therapies dominated the COPD market in 2008 as nearly 80 percent of COPD sales were generated by such agents. Although safety concerns are associated with several maintenance therapies commonly prescribed for COPD, including ICS-containing products as well as Inhaled Anticholinergics, physicians indicate that they will continue to widely prescribe these drugs to their COPD patients but will remain vigilant in monitoring the safety of these drugs in their patients who receive them. The report finds that as new Long-Acting Beta2 Agonist (LABA)/Inhaled Corticosteroid (ICS) combinations, Long-Acting Muscarinic Antagonists (LAMAs), and LABA/LAMA products emerge from clinical development over the next decade, the use of maintenance therapies will continue to increase.
 
Several once-daily dosed LABAs such as Novartis's Indacaterol, Boehringer Ingelheim's BI-1744-CL and GlaxoSmithKline/Theravance's GW-642444 will also enter the COPD market over the next decade. The report finds that these emerging once-daily LABAs will be the cornerstones of combination product development programs which will result in new LABA/ICSs and LABA/LAMAs, the latter being a new and promising class of combination drugs. While all of these agents will achieve their greatest potential as components of combination products, drug marketers are expected to position these agents as add-on therapy to LAMA treatment and/or as Monotherapies for first-line use in patients with moderate COPD in order to maximize the commercial potential of these molecules.
 
"While Advair and Spiriva dominated the COPD market in 2008, we expect their share of the COPD market to decrease through 2018," said Decision Resources Analyst Regina Jammen, M.Sc. "As new maintenance therapies and non-innovator versions of several market-leading branded products launch, the COPD market will shift from a few key products to numerous therapies with subsequently less market concentration on only a few brands. However, even with these changes to the market landscape, the unmet need remains for drugs that can dramatically reduce exacerbation rates and/or slow or halt the progression of COPD."

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