The therapeutics market for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) will face a dynamic phase up until the end of 2023, thanks to the potential launch of new treatments following the patent expirations of top-selling products, says a new report from research and consulting firm GlobalData.

According to the company’s latest report, the MDD treatment market achieved sales of approximately $9.3 billion in 2013 across the seven major markets (7MM: the US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and Japan) and Australia. These sales will witness minimal growth by the end of 2023, reaching an estimated $9.7 billion, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 0.39 per cent.

However, GlobalData forecasts that the market value will first undergo a decline until 2017, with sales dropping to $7.3 billion. This can be attributed mainly to the expirations of patents for Eli Lilly’s Cymbalta, Otsuka Pharmaceutical/BMS’ Abilify and AstraZeneca’s Seroquel XR.

Toli Koutsokeras, GlobalData's Senior Analyst covering Neurology, says: “Additionally, there are a number of significant needs in the depression therapeutics market that are yet to be addressed. These include the requirement for products that demonstrate improved efficacy, more favorable safety profiles and a rapid onset of antidepressant effects. Ample opportunity therefore exists for players looking to develop and potentially introduce therapies, which can address these unmet needs, into this arena.”

GlobalData states that there are already seven products in the late-stage pipeline that could enter the MDD market during the forecast period. These include adjunctive therapies, such as Otsuka/Lundbeck’s brexpiprazole, Forest (Actavis)/Gedeon Richter/Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma’s cariprazine, Alkermes’s ALKS-5461 and Naurex’s GLYX-13, along with antidepressant therapies, including Euthymics Bioscience’s amitifadine, Lundbeck/Takeda’s tedatioxetine and e-Therapeutics’ ETS6103.

Koutsokeras continues: “All seven of these pipeline drugs show promise as safer and more efficacious treatments for MDD patients, while GLYX-13 and ETS6103 in particular boast the potential to provide rapid antidepressant effects.

“With their ability to address some of the MDD treatment market’s key unmet needs, we believe that these products’ launches could well spark its return to growth in 2018. Other driving factors behind the reversal in its decline will be the increasing uptake of Lundbeck/Takeda’s Brintellix, combined with the expanding number of MDD prevalent cases that we expect to see by the end of 2023.”