The key Parkinson’s disease therapies reported to lose patent protection by 2020 are Novartis/Orion Pharma’s Comtan/Comtess/Stalevo (carbidopa/levodopa/entacapone) and Teva/Lundbeck’s Azilect/Agilect (rasagiline).

The report also expects GlaxoSmithKline’s Requip (ropinirole) and Boehringer Ingelheim’s Mirapex/Mirapexin/Sifrol/BI-Sifrol (pramipexole) to face increasing generics competition.

Sales in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, the UK and US will continue to be driven by the leading dopamine agonists, pramipexole and ropinirole, and by increasing use of the monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B) inhibitor Azilect/Agilect (rasagiline), as well as by the re-entry of UCB/Schwarz Pharma's Neupro/Leganto (rotigotine) to the US market and its wider use in Europe.

The report forecasts that despite some key current therapies experiencing increased uptake and the launch of three new agents by 2020, sales of current products and the market impact of emerging therapies will be offset by generic competition.

The three new therapies set to launch by 2020 are Impax Laboratories/GSK’s IPX-066, a reformulation of levodopa, the mainstay of Parkinson’s disease therapy, Merck Serono/Newron Pharmaceuticals’ MAO-B inhibitor safinamide and Kyowa Hakko Kirin’s adenosine A2A receptor inhibitor antagonist istradefylline.

IPX-066, and to a lesser extent safinamide, are expected to contribute moderately to market growth. Both drugs are expected to contend with established agents within the same respective drug classes (where generic alternatives exist) and which are commonly used in the patient populations targeted by the emerging therapies.

While the first-in-class agent istradefylline will benefit from use in the management of motor response complications arising from levodopa treatment, its overall impact will be modest as it is currently expected to launch only in Japan.

The report does not expect major changes in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease over the next 10 years, and generics growth of key Parkinson’s disease therapies is expected to ‘depress market growth’ by 2020. Decision Resources analyst Ms Nadja Rodovsky comments that ‘future therapies will need to clearly demonstrate superiority over current therapies to gain a competitive edge in this mature market’.

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