The Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading provider of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, has selected Sovaldi, Anoro Ellipta and Idelalisib as the three potential blockbusters to watch out for the current year.
According to its annual forecast of the leading drugs to watch in 2014, the three potential blockbuster treatments anticipated to attain more than $1 billion in sales through 2019, after entering the marketplace this year.
The study utilized Cortellis Competitive Intelligence, the pharmaceutical industry’s leading source for drug pipeline, deals, patents, and company content, to create a market insight report identifying drugs that will have a significant impact on the marketplace in 2014 and for years to come.
Sovaldi, Gilead’s oral NS5B ploymersase inhibitor for treating hepatitis C virus (HCV), was approved by the FDA in December 2013 and is expected to reach a consensus of $2.4 billion in sales in 2014, rising to its peak in sales in an estimated $9.1 billion in 2017.
“GlaxoSmithKline/Theravance’s Anoro Ellipta, which contains two bronchodilators for the long-term, once-daily maintenance treatment of airflow obstruction in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), is predicted to outsell its developers’ 2013 potential blockbuster Relovair in the COPD field, with forecasted sales of $3 billion through 2019,” said the report.
Gilead filed Idelalisib, the oral P13K p110-delta subunit inhibitor, for US approval for indolent non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in September 2013 and for European approval for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) and INHL in October 2013. A US filing for CLL is also planned. This treatment demonstrated significant efficacy in a phase III CLL trial; however, idelalisib faces stiff competition in the CLL marketplace, the report said.
“These treatments are expected to be the highest performing from our list of drugs to watch in 2014,” said Charlotte Jago, a senior editor for the Thomson Reuters Life Science business, and author of the Market Insight report. “That is not to say, however, that these are the only drugs of high potential this year. To the contrary, there are several other therapies we’ve identified and which are also worth keeping an eye on.”
Among those worthy of additional attention are Eli Lilly’s long-acting GLP-1 analog dulaglutide for diabetes and its anti-VEGFR2 mAb Cyramza for gastric cancer, as well as MannKind’s inhaled insulin product Afrezza. This will be the third filing for Afrezza since 2009, after the FDA twice requested further information.
“It is interesting to watch the transformation from yesterday’s blockbuster drug era to that of the current environment, where precision medicine and drug repositioning are on centre stage,” said Jon Brett-Harris, managing director, Thomson Reuters Life Sciences. “That said, we see three strong potentials of blockbuster Caliber this year. As the pharmaceutical industry searches for replacement revenue streams, our Drugs to Watch report is a valuable tool for identifying therapies that have blockbuster potential, as well as other drugs with strong revenue indicators.”