World sales forecasts for immune/inflammatory disease schizophrenia and

Decision Resources has published new market forecasts for the world'sseven leading pharmaceutical markets (USA, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK and Japan).

The first study, which deals with cytokine-based drugs in treating immune and inflammatory diseases, says use of these treatments for rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma and organ transplantation is poised for explosive growth during 1999-2009. Sales will rise 14.5% a year to reach $4.3 billion by 2009, excluding sales of therapies targeting TNF-alpha.

Factors driving this growth include: - Amgen's Kineret (anakinra), which may prove effective in suppressing inflammation and delaying disease progression to RA. It is also in trials for IBD, asthma, and graft-versus-host disease; - Immunex' Nuvance (soluble interleukin-4 receptor), which should continue to show efficacy and prove to be safe in asthma patients, with a US market launch forecast for 2004; and - other, more speculative factors may include the demonstration of protective effects of recombinant human IL-11 (Genetics Institute's Neumega) for IBD and the approval of Schering-Plough's Tenovil (IL-10) for RA and IBD.