New Schizophrenia Drug to Lead the Market by 2016

Independent analyst firm Datamonitor Healthcare has forecast that the long-acting depot therapy Abilify Maintena, which was approved for EU use last month, will become the leading injectable schizophrenia therapy by 2016.

Datamonitor Healthcare also forecasts that the drug will generate annual sales worth up to $842 million by 2021 in the US, Japan and five major EU markets*.

Abilify Maintena (Otsuka/Lundbeck) is expected to act as strong competition for other long-acting depot formulas, such as Johnson and Johnson’s Invega Sustenna and Risperdal Consta, due to its favourable tolerability profile.

Natasha Spiller, analyst at Datamonitor Healthcare said: “The key advantage of long-acting formulations compared with oral therapies is their ability to improve patient compliance, which is an important consideration for long-term maintenance therapy.

“The development of injectable formulations represents one of the final strategies left for companies to drive growth through this mature market. We expect the value of depot formulations to increase from $1.1 billion in 2012 to $1.4 billion by 2021 in the seven major markets**, despite the fact that we’re forecasting a slight decline in the overall schizophrenia market during the next 10 years.”

The predicted decline in the schizophrenia market is a result of limited novelty in the development pipeline and generic erosion of key marketed brands, but Datamonitor Healthcare forecasts that the market will be worth $4.1billion by 2021 in the seven major markets**.

*5 major EU markets = France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK

** 7 major markets = US, Japan and the 5 major EU markets.