DecisionBase PDFs

January 2010

Type 2 Diabetes: Despite the Domination of Entrenched, Generic Oral Therapies, Blockbuster Potential Awaits a Once-Weekly GLP-1 Analogue

Introduction:

Although generic oral therapies are the mainstay of first- and second-line treatment of type 2 diabetes, this indication still offers significant commercial potential thanks to its high prevalence and the less-than-optimal efficacy and safety of current drugs. Competition in this market will increase significantly in the next ten years as a result of the anticipated launch of more than 20 novel therapies for type 2 diabetes and the loss of patent protection of the sales-leading PPAR-gamma agonists. However, no therapies in development offer both the efficacy and safety that physicians desire. In particular, there is great potential for conveniently delivered drugs that can elicit significantly greater reductions in HbA1c and body weight without triggering hypoglycemia.

Questions Answered in This Report:

  *   Improved glycemic control and reduction of body weight are key goals in the treatment of type 2 diabetes. What are the key primary and secondary clinical trial end points with which new therapies are evaluated? How do U.S. and European endocrinologists weight specific efficacy end points and other drug attributes in their prescribing decisions for type 2 diabetes?

  *   Pioglitazone (Takeda’s Actos) was the major-market sales leader for type 2 diabetes in 2008. How will pioglitazone and other current therapies fare against emerging therapies? Will emerging therapies offer improvements in the efficacy end points and drug attributes that are most influential in physician prescribing decisions? If so, which drugs will suffer most from entry of these new agents?

  *   By 2013, exenatide LAR (Amylin/Eli Lilly/Alkermes’ Byetta LAR) will emerge as the gold-standard therapy in our Drug Comparator Model because of its superior clinical profile compared with the current therapies evaluated in this study. On what clinical attributes is exenatide LAR most differentiated from its competitors? Which current therapies are at greatest risk of being replaced by exenatide LAR?

Scope:

Key drug development opportunity tested in our target product profiles for type 2 diabetes: a once-weekly GLP-1 analogue.

Physicians surveyed for this study: 60 U.S. and 31 European endocrinologists.

Comprehensive List of Therapies Included in Our Research and Modeling

Current Therapies

- Metformin (Bristol-Myers Squibb/Merck Serono’s Glucophage/Glucophage XR, Biovail/DepoMed’s Glumetza, Watson’s Fortamet, generics)

- Glimepiride (Sanofi-Aventis’s Amaryl, generics)

- Sitagliptin (Merck’s Januvia)

- Pioglitazone (Takeda’s Actos)

- Exenatide (Amylin/Eli Lilly’s Byetta)

Emerging Therapies

- Exenatide LAR (Amylin/Eli Lilly/Alkermes’ Byetta LAR)

- Liraglutide (Novo Nordisk’s Victoza)

- Saxagliptin (Bristol-Myers Squibb/AstraZeneca’s Onglyza)

- Dapagliflozin (Bristol-Myers Squibb/AstraZeneca)

- Metaglidasen (Metabolex/Ortho-McNeil)

Search Reports

Mentioned in this report:

  • Companies:
  • - Alkermes
  • - Amylin Pharmaceuticals
  • - AstraZeneca
  • - Biodel
  • - Biovail
  • - Boehringer Ingelheim
  • - Bristol-Myers Squibb
  • - DepoMed
  • - Eli Lilly and Company
  • - Generex Biotechnology
  • - GlaxoSmithKline
  • - Incyte
  • - Intekrin Therapeutics
  • - Isis Pharmaceuticals
  • - MannKind
  • - Merck & Co.
  • - Merck Serono
  • - Metabolex
  • - Novartis
  • - Novo Nordisk
  • - Ortho-McNeil
  • - Pfizer
  • - Roche
  • - Sanofi-Aventis
  • - Takeda Pharmaceutical
  • - VeroScience
  • - Vivus
  • - Watson Pharmaceuticals