Novel angiogenic drugs could revolutionize treatment of peripheral arterial disease

Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that the market entry of novel angiogenic agents, including a future blockbuster drug from Genzyme, could revolutionize symptomatic treatment of peripheral arterial disease (PAD).

The new Pharmacor report Peripheral Arterial Disease finds that Genzyme's HIF-1 alpha therapy for PAD patients with intermittent claudication, which could reach the market as early as 2010, will garner sales of $1.5 billion in 2016 in the world's major pharmaceutical markets. Experts are optimistic about the market entry of novel angiogenic therapies, which act by generating new blood vessels in the legs and are the first agents to be developed as disease- modifying therapies for PAD. Although numerous studies will be required to establish the efficacy and safety of angiogenic products, physicians are hopeful these pioneering, PAD-specific therapies will be effective in treating the intermittent claudication and critical limb ischemia patient segments.

The report also finds that although statins will continue to dominate the PAD prescription landscape, the U.S. patent expiries of Merck's Zocor in 2006 and Pfizer's Lipitor in 2010 will cause total statin market share to drop from 58% in 2006 to 21% in 2016. The U.S. patent expiry of Zocor will prompt a rapid and extensive shift in prescribing to generic equivalents from 2007 onward as third-party payers remove the brand from formularies.

"Patient-share growth will be fastest for generic Zocor, which will overtake Lipitor for prescriptions in the majority of newly diagnosed PAD patients who may be unable to afford the high co-payments associated with Lipitor," said Mary Argent-Katwala, Ph.D., analyst at Decision Resources. "The decline in statin market share will then accelerate from 2011 to 2016 after the widespread patent expiry of Lipitor."