Antibacterial market looks to new products as key patents expire

The patent expiries of several key antibiotic products, including drugs from Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi-Aventis, Daiichi-Sankyo, Merck, Abbott, AstraZeneca, and Wyeth, could constrain the antibacterial drug market significantly over the next decade.

According to the new Pharmacor report, Emerging Antibacterial Agents, by research and advisory firm Decision Resources, Johnson & Johnson's Levaquin, Sanofi-Aventis's Tavanic, Daiichi-Sankyo's Cravit, Merck's Primaxin, Abbott's Omnicef, AstraZeneca's Merrem, and Wyeth's Zosyn together generated more than $4 billion in sales in 2005. All of these drugs, which represented more than 20% of the entire antibacterial drug market in 2005, will lose patent exclusivity within the next 10 years.

The report also finds that among the most important areas of current and future medical need are antibiotics that are effective against resistant gram- negative pathogens in the hospital setting, as well as novel oral drugs to treat methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

As the introduction of premium-priced agents to the hospital setting will drive near-term growth of the hospital antibiotic market, several companies are pursuing development of anti-MRSA therapeutic antibodies for use in combination with traditional antibiotics.

"The hospital sector will become more dynamic owing to a number of late-stage antibiotics that have the potential to be introduced over the next several years," said Decision Resources analyst Danielle Drayton. "Pfizer, Cubist, Novartis, Theravance, Johnson & Johnson/Basilea, and Forest have innovative antibacterials that address significant unmet needs for severe resistant infections. The early pipeline is also quite diverse with several early-stage classes of drugs from Affinium, Crystal Genomics, and Novexel that may prove to be the blockbusters of tomorrow."