Decision Resources: Fibromyalgia drug may have firm grasp on market through 2018

WALTHAM, Mass. A hypothetical fibromyalgia drug that improved sleeping quality better than the top-selling drugs on the market would capture a large portion of the patient share in the United States and Europe, even as doctors continued to prescribe existing treatments, according to a report by Decision Resources.

The market research firm said in the report, released Monday, that such a drug would capture 38% of the patients share in the United States and 30% of it in Europe through 2018, though physicians would likely use such a drug as a second- or later-line therapy while prescribing Pfizer’s Lyrica (pregabalin), Eli Lilly & Co.’s and Boehringer Ingelheim’s Cymbalta (duloxetine hydrochloride) and the generic amitriptyline as first-line treatments.

“Decision Resources’ proprietary drug comparator model reveals that current U.S. fibromyalgia-approved drugs such as Lyrica, Cymbalta and Forest Laboratories [and] Cypress Biosciences’s Savella perform similarly across measures of efficacy, safety and efficacy and tolerability and delivery,” Decision Resources analyst Andrea Buurma said. “However, Lyrica’s status as the first drug approved for fibromyalgia has ensured its position as the patient share leader.”