Monoclonal antibody drug sales soaring -report
Tuesday October 1, 6:59 pm ET
LONDON, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Sales of monoclonal antibody drugs soared by 57 percent to $2.9 billion in 2001 and could total as much as $12.1 billion by 2010, market consultancy Datamonitor said on Wednesday.
Sometimes dubbed magic bullets because they home in specifically against particular diseases, monoclonal antibodies are one of the fastest-growing sectors in the pharmaceutical industry.
Datamonitor said those targeted against cancer would continue to dominate the field, with projected sales of $6.6 billion by 2010.
Genentech Inc's (NYSE:DNA - News) Rituxan for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma would remain the number one monoclonal antibody, growing by a compound annual growth rate of 10.8 percent to $2.3 billion by 2010.
Johnson & Johnson's (NYSE:JNJ - News) Remicade for Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis, was forecast to remain the best seller outside the cancer field, achieving peak sales of $1.3 billion.
Genentech and Novartis AG's (NOVZn.VX) asthma therapy Xolair and Abbott Laboratories Inc's (NYSE:ABT - News) rheumatoid arthritis D2E7 would experience the highest growth rate of the class, expanding by 45.6 percent to $856 million and 43.9 percent to $800 million, respectively.
"The class is now thriving with over 100 products in development and is enjoying considerable investment from both the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry," the report stated.
"The higher specificity of monoclonals translates into a very mild toxicity profile for most patients, and their novel mechanism of action enables superior clinical efficacy when first-line therapies have failed."
Datamonitor said their appeal was evident from the fact that there were over 160 monoclonal antibodies in clinical development in 2002 compared to just 13 marketed products.
But it said small biotechnology and larger pharmaceutical companies would have to form strategic relationships with contract manufacturing organisations and other companies with spare capacity to overcome manufacturing shortages. |
