Global Immunology Treatment Market Forecast to Decline Long-Term

While revenue for a number of immunology therapies is expected to expand over the next decade, the long-term outcome for these drugs is expected to drop, according to business intelligence provider GBI Research.

Even with a number of patent expiries for many immunologic drugs on the horizon, the global treatment market for these drugs is projected to expand from $61.5 billion in 2015 to $74.2 billion by 2022, according to GBI.

The Compound Annual Growth Rate for these products is projected to remain relatively stable at 2.71%. This growth rate is associated with practical and regulatory barriers in biosimilar drug development that do not exist among small molecule generics. Immunologic drugs also have a moderately strong late-stage pipeline.

“This market is a lucrative area as up to 7% of western populations are thought to be affected by chronic immunological disorders,” said Dominic Trewartha, managing analyst for GBI Research. “Consequently, the pharmaceutical pipeline for immunology is considerable, with 1896 products currently in active development. While 85 of these are in phase 3 of the process, it must be acknowledged that 73% of these pipeline products are in early developmental stages.”

The study found that numerous prospective products are expected to generate strong annual revenue during the forecast period. These revenues are not, however, expected to be comparable to that which is generated by the top selling immunology drugs currently available.

“To date, the most clinically and commercially effective drugs have been in a class of compounds known as monoclonal antibodies, which includes blockbuster products such as Humira (adalimumab) and Remicade (infliximab),” Trewartha said. “APB-501, a biosimilar of Humira, which was the best-selling drug of 2014 worldwide, is anticipated to generate annual revenues of almost $1 billion by 2022, making it an exceptionally strong-performing non-patented drug.”

Despite the market for immunology drugs remaining commercially active, revenues among the key drugs in this area are projected to decline steadily by the end of the study period.

“GBI Research believes that revenues for immunology therapeutics will only significantly decline in the long term, beyond the forecast period,” Trewartha added. “This is due to the protective effect of the practical and regulatory challenges in fielding biosimilar products, which reduces the impact of patent expiries on biologics, compared with small molecules.”