Gilead’s HCV drug occupies 19% of HCV market in 5 mths

Total prescription sales of Epclusa and Vosevi in Q1 reaches KRW 1.6 billion

Abbvie’s Mavyret’s sales fall from KRW 8.6 billion to KRW 6.4 billion... share falls to 74%

Gilead Science’s new hepatitis C treatment has made a successful soft landing in the market and derived good initial results.

 

Epclusa and Vosevi, which were released in November last year, increased their market share to 19% in the oral hepatitis C treatment market in Q1 this year.

 

On the other hand, the market share of Abbvie’s Mavyret, which previously dominated the market, fell from 81% in Q1 2022 to 74% in Q1 this year.

 

◆ The first new Gilead HCV drugs to be released in 8 years expand market share to 19% On the 2nd, according to the market research institution UBIST, the outpatient prescription sales of Gilead’s Epclusa reached KRW 1.1 billion in Q1 this year.

 

During the same period, Vosevi’s sales recorded a prescription amount of KRW 500 million.

 

The two drugs have occupied 19% of the total HCV market.

 

Considering that it has been 5 months since its release, their performance is considered to be fair.

 

Both products are HCV treatments released by Gilead in November last year.

 

The company sought to recreate the glory it had enjoyed with Harvoni and Sovaldi with Epclusa and Vosevi.

 

Gilead’s Harvoni and Sovaldi had once dominated the HCV treatment market.

 

The drugs quickly replaced existing drugs with their release and recorded over KRW 100 billion in combined prescriptions in 2017.

 

Its share soared to 77%.

 

However, the situation changed with the introduction of the pan-genotypic treatment ‘Mavyret.’ can be used for patients with hepatitis C virus types 1 to 6, while Harvoni cannot be used for types 3 and Sovaldi cannot be used for types 5 and 6.

 

The long treatment period of 12 weeks, compared to 8 weeks for Mavyret, also worked as a weakness for Harvoni and Sovaldi.

 

Since then, Harvoni and Sovaldi's market share, which had reached 77% in 2017, fell sharply to 21% the following year.

 

Last year, their share fell even further to 17%.

 

Sovaldi’s sales fell to the extent that it faced the risk of revoking its marketing authorization during reevaluation review in 2021.

 

◆ Mavyret’s stronghold over the market falters after the introduction of Epclusa and Vosevi On the other hand, Mavyret quickly expanded its market share.

 

In its first year of release, its shares soared from 12% in 2018 to 71% in 2019.

 

Its share further increased to 85% last year, virtually dominating the HCV treatment market.

 

In this situation, Gilead released a new hepatitis C treatment for the first time in eight years, heralding the return of the former market leader.

 

In particular, Gilead set a lower price tag than Mavyret, expressing its will to retake the lead in the HCV market.

 

Epclusa is priced at KRW 117,030 per tablet, and Vosevi KRW 120,836 per tablet.

 

In terms of total treatment cost, Epclusa costs KRW 9,830,520 and Vosevi 10,150,224.

 

This is cheaper than the KRW 10,922,352 it costs with Mavyret.

 

The industry expects that although the treatment period of Epclusa and Vosevi is still longer than that of Mavyret by 12 weeks, their lower price and convenience in intake will further drive their occupation of Korea’s HCV treatment market.

 

Epclusa is a pan-genotypic treatment like Mavyret.

 

The treatment period is 12 weeks, which is about a month longer than that of Mavyret, but its administration of 1 tablet a day is simpler than that of Mavyret’s 3 tablets a day.

 

In fact, Mavyret’s sales have been faltering since the introduction of Epklusa and Vosevi.

 

Mavyret recorded prescription sales of KRW 6.4 billion in Q1, which is a 26% decrease from the KRW 8.6 billion it had raised in Q1 last year.

 

Its market share has also fallen 7%p from 81% to 74%.

 

◆Made a successful soft landing, but the reduction in overall market size still remains a concern However, the contracting HCV treatment market remains a concern for the comapny's new treatment release.

 

In fact, the size of the oral HCV treatment market has steadily decreased from KRW 135.3 billion in 2017 to KRW 73.7 billion in 2018, then to KRW 65.1 billion in 2019, and KRW 47.4 billion in 2020, KRW 35.1 billion in 2021, then to KRW 34.2 billion in 2022.

 

Compared to 2017, when the market had expanded to its maximum, the market had shrunk to a quarter in 5 years.

 

The industry pointed to the characteristics held by the HCV treatments as a cause of the market contraction.

 

Before the introduction of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) like Mavyret, HCV had been a very critical condition.

 

However, the treatment effect of HCV drugs had increased dramatically with the introduction of BMS’s Daklinza and Sunvepra.

 

With Gilead Sciences' Sovaldi and Harvoni, MSD’s Zepatier, and Abbvie’s Mavyret that followed, the treatment effect had further increased.

 

With the treatment effect high enough to be close to a complete cure, the market size quickly contracted with the number of patients being prescribed the drug increasing within the finite number of patients in the market.