Use of the Existing Cytokine Therapeutics in Inflammatory Indications will Grow Significantly through 2009, and a Substantial Growth in Sales of this Drug Class is Expected.

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c32007) has announced the addition of Cytokine Therapeutics: Current and Future Markets in Inflammatory Disease to their offering.

According to this Decision Resources report, inflammatory diseases affect more than 500 million patients in the major pharmaceutical markets, and total prevalence is growing. In the treatment of these diseases, cytokine therapeutic agents play a major role. The five cytokine agents that have reached the U.S. and European markets so far have achieved major commercial success: in 2004, the value of the global anti-inflammatory cytokines market was $6.5 billion. Cytokine therapeutics may in the future prove useful in the treatment of many other diseases, but owing to the value of the inflammatory disease market and the great interest in developing new cytokine therapeutics to treat inflammatory diseases, this report focuses only on these indications, describing the role of cytokines in inflammation, surveying the current market, discussing emerging agents in detail, and concluding with a comprehensive market outlook.

By 2004, five products that target cytokines, all recombinant agents, had reached the market; sales of these agents reached $6.5 billion in that year, primarily for treatment of inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and Crohn's disease (CD). Nearly all sales were generated by the three available anti-TNF-a agents: etanercept, infliximab, and adalimumab.

Twenty-one recombinant products that target 11 different cytokines are in clinical development for conditions such as RA, psoriasis, CD, asthma, multiple sclerosis, and osteoarthritis. A significant number of orally active, small-molecule inhibitors of cytokine production are also in clinical development for the same diseases. Development of the marketed cytokine therapeutics for additional indications is ongoing.

The complexity of cytokines and their receptors has so far hindered the development of additional cytokine therapeutics, and Decision Resources expect few agents in development to reach the market before 2010. Therefore, currently available cytokine therapeutics will face relatively few challenges from new cytokine therapeutics. However, the existing agents will face competition from drugs that offer alternative approaches to the treatment of inflammatory disease, including the T-cell modulators efalizumab and alefacept and the lymphocyte modulator abatacept.

Use of the existing cytokine therapeutics in inflammatory indications will grow significantly through 2009, and a substantial growth in sales of this drug class is expected. However, assessment of the market beyond 2009 is difficult owing to the many uncertainties about which of the newer agents will come to market in 2010 and beyond. Nevertheless, continuing growth in cytokine therapeutics sales is projected beyond 2010, especially if anti-IL-1 therapy becomes an established treatment for osteoarthritis.

Topics covered in this report include:

--Treatment of Inflammatory Disease--Overview

--The Role of Cytokines in Inflammation

--Overview of Current Market

--Emerging Therapeutics

--Recombinant Agents

--Oral Therapeutics

--Market Outlook

--Therapeutics Emerging Before 2010

--Impact of Cytokine Therapeutics by Therapeutic Segment

Companies mentioned include:

--Abbott

--Aerovance

--Altana

--Amgen

--Biogen Idec

--BioWa

--Boehringer Ingelheim

--Cambridge Antibody Technology

--Celgene

--Celltech

--Centocor

--Chugai

--Forest

--Genmab

--GlaxoSmithKline

--Glenmark

--Kissei

--Merck

--Neuro3D

--Novartis

--NPS Pharmaceuticals

--Ono

--OPi

--Otsuka

--Pharmacia

--Pharmacopeia

--Protein Design Labs

--Regeneron

--Roche

--Sanofi-Aventis

--Schering-Plough

--Scios

--Serono

--Takeda

--Tanabe

--Teijin

--UCB

--Vertex

--Wyeth

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c32007

Source: Decision Resources