Hepatitis C drug market forecast to more than triple to $7.5 billion by 2014, but decline thereafter

As a result of the launch of several novel agents, the hepatitis C virus (HCV) drug market will more than triple from around $2 billion in 2009 to nearly $7.5 billion in 2014 in the leading global markets - the USA, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and Japan, according to research and advisory firm Decision Resources. Thereafter, however the market will substantially decrease to $4.6 billion in 2019 due to decreasing prevalence of the disease and the high efficacy of new treatment regimens.

The Pharmacor 2010 findings from the topic entitled Hepatitis C Virus reveal that the standard of care for the indication will change significantly with the introduction of new classes of HCV-specific antiviral agents, such as protease inhibitors and polymerase inhibitors. Compounds from these new classes will initially be added to the backbone of currently used agents, forming triple or quadruple treatment regimens that are expected to be more efficacious than the current standard of care - peg-IFN/ribavirin.

"Although complete elimination of peg-IFNs and ribavirin agents is highly desirable owing to their side effects, this change is unlikely to occur over the next decade," said Decision Resources analyst Alexandra Makarova. "However, decreased treatment durations resulting from the addition of new antivirals could increase the tolerability of treatment regimens. The launch of novel HCV-specific agents will increase the size of the drug-treated population, owing mainly to re-treatment of prior non-responders as well as increased referral and drug-treatment rates," Dr Makarova noted.