Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that two first-in-class agents — Merck's telcagepant and CoLucid's lasmiditan — will earn combined sales of approximately $1.3 billion in 2019 in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom and Japan. These two agents will see uptake as welcomed acute treatment alternatives for migraine patients who are triptan-refractory or who are dissatisfied with current therapies, and for those in whom the triptans are contraindicated or poorly tolerated.
The Pharmacor 2010 findings from the topic entitled Migraine reveal that sales of telcagepant and lasmiditan will help offset an overall decline in the sales of migraine therapies in the world's major markets, owing to the generic erosion of top-selling agents such as GlaxoSmithKline's Imitrex/Imigran and Ortho-McNeil/Janssen-Cilag's Topamax. The findings also reveal that five novel reformulations of established acute migraine treatments will combine to earn approximately $500 million by 2019.
"Emerging reformulations in development by MAP Pharmaceuticals, NuPathe, OptiNose and other companies blend proven therapies with innovative delivery to provide unique and convenient alternatives that will appeal to patients in several niches, including treatment-refractory patients, patients who experience nausea/vomiting and patients who desire rapid symptom relief or improved consistency," said Decision Resources Analyst Jonathan Searles. "However, through 2019, competition from generic triptans and other well-entrenched therapies likely will constrain the uptake of such products."
The Pharmacor 2010 findings also reveal that in light of the positive Phase III clinical trials, interviewed headache specialists express growing enthusiasm about the use of Allergan's Botox for the prevention of chronic migraine — a highly disabled and underserved patient population.
"The formal approval of Botox for chronic migraine prophylaxis earlier this year in the United Kingdom is a clinical milestone, and additional approvals in other markets will be welcomed by headache specialists, some of whom already administer the drug for migraine prophylaxis off-label," Mr. Searles said. "We forecast Botox to garner major-market sales of approximately $300 million for the prophylactic treatment of migraine in 2019."
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