Report predicts lower profits in chronic heart failure drug market

WALTHAM, Mass. The research and advisory firm Decision Resources has found that the patent expiries of key therapies, most notably Coreg by GlaxoSmithKline and Dilatrend/Kredex by Roche, will cause the chronic heart failure drug market to decline by more than 50 percent, from $2.5 billion in 2006 to $1.2 billion in 2016.

The report which studied these numbers, entitled Chronic Heart Failure, also found that, although the market to treat the disease has a wide array of effective and well-established treatments, many patients remain undertreated as a result of physician non-compliance with guideline, particularly at the earlier stages of the disease. Additionally, there is no current evidence that emerging treatments for chronic heart failure offer significant improvements in patient outcome over existing therapies.

“The level of mortality in chronic heart failure remains high, with the majority of patients not surviving beyond five years after diagnosis,” said Graeme Green, analyst at Decision Resources. “Significant opportunity remains for improved treatments that can address the high level of mortality and offer longer-term survival for patients.”