Decision Resources projects decrease in antipsychotic drug market

WALTHAM, Mass. The market for drugs used to treat schizophrenia will decrease by more than $1 billion over the next four years due to generic competition, according to a new report.

According to a Decision Resources report released Wednesday, titled "Schizophrenia", the market for atypical antipsychotic drugs will decrease from last year’s figure of $6.3 billion to $5.2 billion by 2013 in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain and Japan as several established antipsychotic drugs lose patent protection.

Those drugs will include Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen’s Risperdal Consta (risperidone) and Invega (paliperidone), AstraZeneca’s Seroquel (quetiapine fumarate), Bristol-Myers Squibb’s and Otsuka Pharmaceutical’s Abilify (aripiprazole), Eli Lilly & Co.’s Zyprexa (olanzapine) and Pfizer’s Geodon (ziprasidone hydrochloride).

After 2013, an increase in the use of emerging therapies, mostly extended-release injections called “depot formulations,” will increase the market to $5.6 billion in 2018.

“Depot formulations such as Invega Sustenna will offer advantages in dosing and administration compared with the only marketed atypical depot formulation, Janssen’s Risperdal Consta,” Decision Resources analyst Sandra Chow said in a statement. “Emerging depot formulations will command premium pricing and, in 2018, will account for nearly one-third of the overall schizophrenia drug market.”