SpinrazaㆍZolgensma are jammed at 570 billion and 360 billion won mark
The Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) treatment market is changing.
With the advent of Evrysdi (Roche), a change is taking place in the competition between Spinraza (Biogen), which is administered every four months via spinal infusion, and Zolgensma (Novartis), one-time gene therapy.
According to the reports of the three companies, Biogen, Novartis, and Roche, the combined global sales of these three products exceeded 1 trillion won in 1Q and rose further to 1.1 trillion won in 2Q.
Among them, Evrysdi, which obtained the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in 3Q of last year, doubled its size to 200 billion won in 2Q after rising to 100 billion won in 1Q.
Starting with 10 billion won in 1Q (third quarter of 2020), Evrysdi has risen to 50 billion won in the next quarter and immediately expanded its sales to 100 billion and 200 billion won.
Its market share in these products also soared to 17.9% in 2Q from 9.4% in 1Q.
Evrysdi’s appearance put the leaders on the brakes of their growth. In particular, Spinraza, which had more than 600 billion won in sales every quarter until the first quarter of last year, has remained at the mid to late 500 billion won mark since 2Q of 2020.
Zolgensma rose to 360 billion won in 1Q of the year, but it stayed at the same level as the previous quarter in 2Q.
First of all, the relatively low drug price and the advantage of oral treatment of Evrysdi seem to provide new alternatives for patients.
However, even though it is relatively cheaper than the other two drugs, the administration cost of Evrysdi is also formidable, and the method of dosing is somewhat more complicated than general oral drugs. Therefore, a fierce battle between companies is expected.
Spinraza is an intrathecal injection and has a long dosing interval of 4 months.
Although Zolensma is a highly expensive drug known to be around 2 billion won, it is more cost-effective in the long run than competitors, which cost hundreds of millions of won a year, and has the benefit of reducing the burden on patients and caregivers following the repeated dosing process.
