With seven promising Neuropathic Pain (NP) treatments expected to be launched in the coming years, the NP therapeutics market value covering painful diabetic neuropathy, postherpetic neuralgia and trigeminal neuralgia is forecast to increase from $2.58 billion in 2012 to $3.53 billion by 2022, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 3.19 per cent, says research and consulting firm GlobalData.

According to the company’s latest report, seven novel pipeline drugs targeting these three indications will enter the market before 2022. These include Daiichi Sankyo’s DS-5565, Convergence’s CNV-2197944, Grünenthal’s Cebranopadol and Impax’s Eladur. GlobalData expects the sales of these pipeline therapies to account for 23.8 per cent of the global NP market by 2022.

Sally Chege, GlobalData’s analyst covering Neurology, says: “Although many of the available drugs offer some degree of efficacy in terms of pain relief, there still remains vast room for improvement in efficacy, safety, drug delivery, and dosing convenience.

“Furthermore, all three market-leading therapies, Pfizer’s Lyrica, Eli Lilly’s Cymbalta and Endo Health’s Lidoderm, will lose patent protection over the forecast period, therefore increasing the risk of generic erosion.”

GlobalData believes that there are opportunities for companies to enter the NP market through the development of novel drugs, provided that their product offerings target some of these unmet needs.

However, as Chege continues: “Steep research and development costs, as well as the high failure rate of pain medications in NP clinical trials, have led many larger pharmaceutical companies to deprioritise the development of new NP therapies.”