Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, forecasts that U.S. and European (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and U.K.) sales of Roche/Biogen Idec's Rituxan/MabThera, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Merck's Erbitux and Roche's Herceptin will peak at almost $16 billion in 2014, before falling to roughly $10 billion in 2018. Biosimilars of these three branded agents are forecasted to erode $8.2 billion in U.S. and European sales in 2018 but they are expected to capture only $4.6 billion in sales due to their lower prices.
"Biosimilars of the five brands covered in this report (Rituxan/MabThera, Erbitux, Herceptin, Amgen's Neupogen and Neulasta) will erode $34.3 billion in brand sales during our 2008-2018 forecast period across the U.S. and Europe and save health care systems $17.3 billion in the process," stated Michael Malecki, Ph.D., analyst and product manager at Decision Resources.
The new special report entitled Biosimilars: G-CSFs and Monoclonal Antibodies in Oncology also finds that oncologists are expected to demand clinical data for biosimilars demonstrating equivalence in multiple subpopulations. That is, although a biosimilar may be labeled for use in multiple subpopulations, oncologists will not feel comfortable prescribing a biosimilar without clinical validation.