Asthma (What Are the Expectations for Optimal Positioning of New and Emerging Inhaled and Biological Therapies in Market Access Systems?) | Physician & Payer Forum | EU5 | 2014
High unmet need exists for severe, refractory asthma patients, for whom Genentech/Novartis’s Xolair is currently the only therapeutic option. Together with a number of newly approved agents for the wider asthma population, including GlaxoSmithKline/Theravance’s Relvar, and the anticipated approval of Boehringer Ingelheim/Pfizer’s Spiriva, novel brands seeking to address such need are likely to drive market growth despite increasing generic and branded-generic erosion of current key players. Specifically, interleukin-5 (IL-5)-targeting biologics in Phase III clinical development—Cephalon/Teva’s Cinquil, GSK’s Bosatria and MedImmune/AstraZeneca/BioWa’s benralizumab—will infuse a competitive dynamic to the severe, disease-refractory market segment in asthma. However, the entry of expensive biologics into the asthma market will be met with increasing reimbursement restrictions and other market access challenges owing to payers’ heightened cost-consciousness in the current economic climate across the EU5 countries under study.
