Trending Now: The U.S. healthcare system could avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in medical costs if medication adherence rates improved. Sales, Marketing, and R&D Trends from Industry Analysts Featured Briefs: Adherence Can Lead to Healthcare Savings Sidebars: Adherence Trends Therapeutic Trax… MCOs are Shifting Control of Specialty from Medical to Pharmacy Benefit Contract Manufacturing to Grow Steadily PharmaTrax Patient redemption of prescription savings offers — including co-pay offers, savings vouchers and free trial offers — increased by almost 20% from second quarter 2012 (April to June) to second quarter 2013, according to consumer healthcare marketing analytics firm Crossix Solutions. Based on a sample of prescription transactional data across more than 400 branded drugs, the company’s Rx Offer Market Intelligence (ROMI) syndicated data showed that for brands that had any type of offer during the respective time periods, the percentage of all prescription transactions for which a savings offer was processed increased from 6.4% to 7.6%, constituting an 18% lift in 12 months. The lift in offer redemption is particularly noteworthy considering that the percentage of drugs with any type of offer program actually declined by 3% during this period. This decline was primarily driven by a 15.6% decrease in drugs with a free trial offer, as well as a 2.6% decrease in drugs with a co-pay offer. According to Asaf Evenhaim, Crossix CEO and co-founder, “as market competition continues to intensify, pharma companies are relying more heavily on compelling savings offers to attract new patients and retain existing ones, particularly as brands lose exclusivity and new brands are launched." Further, the Crossix study compared offer redemption across each major drug category with 14 of 27 categories exhibiting increases and the other 13 categories exhibiting decreases. Redemption increased markedly in categories such as oral anticoagulants, hypertension, diabetes, cholesterol lowering, and bipolar/schizophrenia, while redemption decreased in categories such as COPD, ADHD, urology, depression, and erectile dysfunction. { For more information, visit crossix.com/romi. MCOs are Shifting Control of Specialty from Medical to Pharmacy Benefit About 68% of surveyed managed care organization (MCO) pharmacy directors either currently or plan to transition specialty product coverage from the medical benefit to the pharmacy benefit for office-administered products, particularly affecting therapies in rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and oncology, according to a recent report by Decision Resources. About 85% of surveyed plans have some utilization restrictions in place for specialty drugs, particularly prior authorization for therapies covered under the pharmacy or medical benefit. But other restrictions are slated to increase in use. In the next 12 months, 63% of surveyed payers expect to have site of care restrictions in place, while 66% will have preferred and nonpreferred specialty tiers. “Increased complexity in benefit design is impacting all pharmaceuticals, and plan members continue to have increases in financial responsibility," says Senior Director Brenda Cole. “This is especially true for higher cost specialty drugs, which are covered more often in a co-insurance tier." { For more information, visit decisionresources.com. Contract Manufacturing to Grow Steadily Global contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs) are set to steadily become more and more popular, as Western pharmaceutical companies outsource production to Asian countries in a bid to cut costs, according to GBI Research. The overall cost of drug manufacturing is up to 50% cheaper in India than in Western countries. Major CMOs offer upstream and downstream manufacturing functions equally; and, in addition to manufacturing in biopharmaceutical production, they also offer clinical trials, logistics, packaging, and even marketing. According to the industry experts, manufacturing functions dominate almost 60% of the CMO market, with downstream processes accounting for 50% of the manufacturing process. The global CMO market is set to grow steadily and is forecast to reach a value of about $59.9 billion by 2018. { For more information, visit gbiresearch.com. Adherence Trends » Across all market segments (health plans, employer-sponsored plans and Medicare Part D plans), patients with depression generally had the lowest adherence rates, while patients with hypertension were most adherent. » Medicare beneficiaries had the highest adherence rates across the three groups. » Ninety-day dispensing rates were generally highest among members of employer-sponsored plans. » Regional variations were apparent across the groups. The lowest adherence rates for health plan members with diabetes and depression occurred in the Midwest, while the lowest rates for patients with any condition in employer-sponsored plans and Medicare Part D occurred in the South. Source: CVS Caremark 2013 State of the States: Adherence Report Autoimmune The user-base of Pfizer’s Xeljanz — the newest treatment for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) — has almost doubled, compared with previous research fielded three months post-launch. The six-month trial rate among rheumatologists is 61% compared with 32% three months ago. Although 61% of surveyed rheumatologists report trial of the product, users of Xeljanz have only initiated treatment in an average of six RA patients, with three-quarters of the user-base reporting initiation of Xeljanz in five or fewer patients. Source: BioTrends Research Group, LaunchTrends: Xeljanz, Wave 3 (US) { For more information, visit decisionresourcesgroup.com. Rheumatologists in the EU5 countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom) give Genentech/Biogen Idec’s Rituxan and GlaxoSmith-Kline/Human Genome Sciences’ Benlysta the highest satisfaction and overall product performance ratings. Despite their lower utilization and later use in the treatment algorithm for moderate-to-severe patients, physicians report positive impressions of the drugs. Source: BioTrends Research Group, TreatmentTrends: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (EU) { For more information, visit decisionresourcesgroup.com. Cancer Biosimilar versions of Roche’s breakthrough HER2-positive breast cancer drug Herceptin are expected to come to market in 2016. Roche anticipates that the growing success of its antibody-drug conjugate, Kadcyla, will help the company mitigate this drop in revenue and allow Roche to maintain its dominance of the HER2-positive breast cancer market. Source: Datamonitor Healthcare { For more information, visit datamonitorhealthcare.com Roche/Genentech/Chugai’s Avastin, although currently not FDA-approved for the treatment of ovarian cancer, is prescribed by about 70% of surveyed oncologists in first-line advanced ovarian cancer. Avastin is most frequently prescribed in first-line advanced ovarian cancer as an add-on agent to double platinum-based chemotherapy followed by continued administration of Avastin as a maintenance monotherapy. About half of the surveyed oncologists who prescribe Avastin in first-line advanced ovarian cancer indicate that they encounter reimbursement barriers (such as prior authorization) when prescribing Avastin in this setting. Source: Decision Resources, The U.S. Physician and Payer Forum report entitled Ovarian and Endometrial Cancer: How Will U.S. Prescriber and Payer Attitudes Toward Emerging Antiangiogenics and Other Targeted Anticancer Agents Shape the Treatment Landscape { For more information, visit decisionresourcesgroup.com. The number of incident cases of non-small cell lung cancer will grow from 1.03 million in 2012 to 1.26 million by 2022 at a rate of 2.2% per year. This increase is driven by changes in the incidence of lung cancer, an aging population, population growth, smoking habits in men and women, and exposure to environmental risk factors. Of the nine markets, China will have the highest number of incident cases of NSCLC, growing from 0.55 million cases in 2012 to 0.69 million by 2022 at a rate of 2.5% per year. In addition to China, India and Japan are also important markets for NSCLC in the next 10 years because these countries have a growing older population, a high smoking prevalence, and few smoking bans compared with western countries. Source: GlobalData, EpiCast Report: Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer – Epidemiology Forecast to 2022 { For more information, visit globaldata.com. The United States and Germany will have the highest number of incident cases of pancreatic cancer in 2022, with 53,610 and 27,629 cases. Epidemiologists also expect that the number of prevalent cases of pancreatic cancer in the six major markets covered (US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and UK) will increase during the forecast period (2012-2022) to a total of 59,675 cases. The stage at diagnosis for pancreatic cancer is correlated with the availability of screening tests and the ability to identify early symptoms. Due to the inability to identify early indications of the illness, pancreatic cancer cases are most commonly diagnosed in Stage IV. Source: GlobalData, EpiCast Report: Pancreatic Cancer – Epidemiology Forecast to 2022 { For more information, visit globaldata.com. CNS The market for disease-modifying multiple sclerosis (MS) therapies will expand at an annual rate of 10% through 2018, peaking at almost $21 billion in that year. Market growth will be driven by the launch of at least six premium-priced disease-modifying therapies and forecast price increases in the U.S. market. Among new entrants, Biogen Idec’s Tecfidera is expected to have the greatest clinical and commercial success — because of its compelling clinical profile — and will capture more than $4 billion in 2018 sales in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Japan. Source: Decision Resources, Pharmacor Advisory Service: Multiple Sclerosis { For more information, visit decisionresourcesgroup.com. The uptake of key current brands and the launch of three new therapies will help sustain the Parkinson’s disease (PD) market throughout the 2012-2022 forecast period, despite growing competition from generics. As a result of these competing forces, total sales of therapies used to treat PD will remain relatively flat over the next decade, beginning at $2.3 billion in 2012 and ending at $2.4 billion in 2022 in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Japan. Source: Decision Resources, Pharmacor Advisory Service: Parkinson’s Disease { For more information, visit decisionresourcesgroup.com. The combined sales of medications carrying an indication in Alzheimer’s disease were estimated at $3.9 billion in 2012. By 2022, AD drug sales are expected to grow to $6.5 billion, with a CAGR of 5.0% over the course of the decade. Lilly’s solanezumab, an amyloid beta-targeting monoclonal antibody (mAb), will introduce a new mechanism of action (MOA) to the AD drug market. TauRX’s TRx0237, a tau aggregation inhibitor (TAI), will also bring a new MOA to the AD market. By interefering with the formation of NFTs, TRx0237 is believed to play a bigger role in AD prevention. Source: GlobalData, PharmaPoint: Alzheimer’s Disease – Global Drug Forecast and Market Analysis to 2022 { For more information, visit globaldata.com.
