Stivarga outstripped Nexavar as well… Alecensa overwhelms Xalkori
Giotrif • Tecentrig • Perjeta etc. chasing a starter fiercely
In the targeted anti-cancer therapy market, generation change is in progress that attracts attention.
The most interesting field of the targeted anti-cancer therapy market in the first quarter was BCR-ABL TKI market. Glivec (Novartis), which opened the era of targeted therapies, finally collapsed.
Glivec has defended a lead firmly for a decade even after the 2nd and 3rd generation targeted therapies appeared in the market.
However, recently, Tasigna (Novartis) targeted with differentiated data called ‘functional cure’ and finally overtook Glivec and rose to the top position.
Tasigna, with about $11.2 billion sales in the first quarter, got ahead of Glivec with $10.9 billion.
Sprycel (BMS) also narrowed the gap with Glivec by expanding its sales to $8.3 billion with a 27% growth rate over the same period.
Although the domestic new drug, Supect (Daewoong Pharm.), recorded a growth rate of 28%, the size of its quarterly sales is $1.4 billion, which has a gap with a leading group.
The VEGF-TKI therapy market is also interesting. The second treatment Stivarga surpassed the Nexavar (Bayer) and became the leader of the market.
Nexavar, which is mainly targeted for liver cancer and has indications for renal cell carcinoma and thyroid cancer, has maintained the top position in related fields for more than 10 years since its launch.
Stivarga, which has become a post-Nexavar treatment in liver cancer, GIST, and colorectal carcinoma, contributed to the improvement of survival rate and excelled than Nexavar by having sales of $5.9 billion in the first quarter while Nexavar had sales of $5.1 billion.
Cabometyx (Ipsen) also came to be a post-Nexavar treatment with sales of $3.8 billion in the first quarter. This is plenty of gaps with a leading group, but it has tripled its size in a year and is poised to join the leading competition soon.
Moreover, Lenvima (Eisai), which climbed to be the first treatment of liver cancer last year, has tripled its sales to more than $3 billion during the same period and is expected to heat up the competition of the VEGF-TKI market.
The targeted breast cancer therapy market, which had been dominated by Herceptin (Roche), has also turned in to a competitive system.
With the advent of the biosimilar, Herceptin’s sales decreased slightly, and Perjeta (Roche) quickly grew its sales and reached the bottom of Herceptin.
In the first quarter of last year, the sales gap between the two products was $8.3 billion, but the gap narrowed to $2.3 billion in the first quarter, Herceptin with $18.8, and Perjeta with $16.5 billion.
The antibody-drug conjugate Kadcyla (Roche) has also expanded its sales to $10 billion, revealing Roche’s presence in the breast cancer treatment field.
Meanwhile, Herceptin biosimilar Herzuma (Celltrion Pharm) has threatened Roche’s trio by increasing its sales by $6.2 billion, but Samfenet (Daewoong Pharm) still had sales of $0.7 billion.
In the lung cancer treatment market, the dominance of certain products for each target is solidifying.
Even though the 3rd generation Tagrisso (AstraZeneca) has not yet been approved by HIRA (Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service) in the EGFR-TKI market in primary treatment, it is in a commanding lead.
Sales were $23.7 in the first quarter, which is four times higher than second-place Iressa (AstraZeneca). Iressa, the first-generation targeted treatment, is the only one of the four EGFR-TKI products, which has grown more than the same period of last year.
Tarceva (Roche), which opened the EGFR-TKI market with Iressa, has increased its sales to $2.2 billion at a double-digit growth rate, but the gap with Giotrif (Boehringer Ingelheim), the second-generation EGFR-TKI, widened.
Despite the growth of Giotrif has been slow in early launch period, it is expanding its growth recently, by increasing its sales to $4.7 billion with a growth rate of more than 20%, widening the gap with Tarceva from $1.9 billion to $2.5 billion, and narrowing the gap with Iressa from $2.8 billion to $1.3 billion.
In the ALK-TKI market, the positions of Alecensa (Roche) and Xalkori (Pfizer) have been completely reversed over the past year.
While the sales of Xalkori plunged from $8.2 billion to $4 billion in the first quarter last year, Alecensa increased its sales to $7.7 billion.
The latecomer Alunbrig (Takeda) started to move on to the next step by reaching the sales of $0.7 billion, but Zykadia (Novartis) hardly kept $0.2 billion.
Keytruda (MSD) also is dominating cancer immunotherapy where the lung cancer market is competing fiercely.
While Opdivo (Ono Pharm), which found the cancer immunotherapy market with Keytruda, retreated its sales from $16.9 to $15.4, Keytruda rose to mid-$30 billion by increasing its sales about $8.5 billion.
The differential between the two was widened from $10 billion to $20 billion in the first quarter last year. It is now a gap of more than a double score.
On the contrary, since the success of the coverage negotiations on the expansion of indication, Tecentrig (Roche) has rapidly expanded its sales to $7 billion, narrowing the gap with Opdivo, which had widened by more than $15 billion.
In the meantime, Imfinzi (AstraZeneca), which has received the coverage decision for the first time among cancer immunotherapy from the third stage lung cancer, increased its sales to $2.8 billion, while Yervoy (BMS) decreased its sales to about $0.1 billion.
Meanwhile, Rafinar and Meqsel(Novartis), which took coverage decisions for the first time among BRAF targeted therapy last year, developed about 25%~28% and had sales of $1.4 billion.
In the HER2 negative ans HR+ breast cancer treatment market, various types of therapies are appearing, and Ibrance (Pfizer) maintained a lead with sales of $12.8 billion Faslodex (AstraZeneca), which has successfully rebounded due to the activity of CDK 4/6 inhibitors like Ibrance, has raised its quarterly sales from $0.5 billion to $0.8 billion.
In addition, Lynparza (AstraZeneca), which holds indications on ovarian cancer and breast cancer, had $2.9 billion sales, while Zejula (Takeda), that only possesses indication on ovarian cancer, made about $0.8 billion sales.
