New Datamonitor research has revealed that pharmaceutical companies will struggle to profit from the cardiovascular disease market over the next decade, despite growing drug usage. Patent expiries and generic competition will have a major impact and Datamonitor expects only AstraZeneca and Novo Nordisk to generate positive sales growth in this sector out to 2018.
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Well crafted, positive results for AstraZeneca’s Brilinta and an unexpected coup for Boehringer Ingelheim’s Pradaxa dominated the headlines following this year’s European Society of Cardiology’s Annual Meeting in Barcelona. Both announcements have a number of important implications for the wider cardiology market, from both therapeutic and commercial perspectives.
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The ageing population and growing risk factors have made a significant impact on driving up the number of registered heart failure cases. Existing pharmacological strategies are improving the survival rates of acute and early-stage heart failure patients, ironically providing a growing body of patients with progression of the disease to heart failure. With no new drug therapies addressing advanced heart failure and existing pharmacological strategies failing to compensate for a weakening heart, alternative solutions have to be found. In view of long waiting lists for heart transplantation and the growing lack of donor hearts, significant numbers of patients die while waiting for a heart transplant. But cardiac resynchronization therapy, mechanical circulatory support devices and other alternative technologies have demonstrated promising results, and the continuing rapid technological developments in this area suggest we may only be a decade away from eliminating the reliance on heart transplantation, according to a new cardiologic report by independent market analyst Datamonitor.   
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