Ezetimibe combo drug market grows steeply amid COVID-19

Market doubles in 3 years, rosuvastatin+ezetimibe combo highly sought after

Statin+ezetimibe combo prescription in Q2 grows by 20% compared to last year

Atozet soars, Korean generics expected to enter and expand the market

In the dyslipidemia treatment market, the volume of ezetimibe combination drug prescription is expanding rapidly.

 

Preference in prescribing ezetimibe combined with rosuvastatin or atorvasutatin is growing fast.

 

Hanmi Pharmaceutical’s Rosuzet and MSD’s Atozet seem to be leading the steep increase in the use of ezetimibe combination therapy.

 

According to the pharmaceutical market research institute UBIST on Aug.

 

12, the outpatient prescription of ezetimibe plus statin combination drug for dyslipidemia treatment has grown by 19.5 percent from the second quarter last year at 95.4 billion by reaching 114.0 billion won in the second quarter this year.

 

The combination drug has also shown an impressive growth of 23.3 percent in last first quarter as well.

 

Quarterly outpatient prescription volume in statin plus ezetimibe combination drugs (Unit: KRW 1 million) Source: UBIST

In the second quarter, the chronic disease treatment market stagnated amid COVID-19 pandemic, but the ‘statin plus ezetimibe’ combination drug showed an exceptional growth.

 

The statin plus ezetimibe combination drug’s prescription volume only reached 55 billion won in the second quarter of 2017, but it almost doubled in three years.

 

Compared to 29.6 billion won in the second quarter 2016, the market has tripled in just four years.

 

The industry experts analyzed the preference in the combination drug has been surging as the drug demonstrate improved efficacy in lowering low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) level and also the products are reasonably priced.

 

Currently, the available products are a combination of simvastatin, rosuvastatin or atorvastatin with ezetimibe.

 

But rosuvastatin plus ezetimibe drug’s prescription volume has leapt with Korean pharmaceutical companies intensely driving the growth.

 

Outpatient prescription volume in different ezetimibe combination drugs (Unit: KRW 1 million) Source: UBIST

Compared to last year at 85.1 billion won, the rosuvastatin plus ezetimibe combination drug prescription volume in last second quarter grew by 23.8 percent.

 

The figure tripled from 31.5 billion won in 2017.

 

As of last second quarter, rosuvastatin plus ezetimibe combination drug dominates 74.7 percent of the statin plus ezetimibe drug market.

 

Basically the combination drug is leveraging the growth in the entire combination drug market.

 

Hanmi Pharmaceutical’s Rosuzet has been leading the boom of rosuvastatin plus ezetimibe combination drugs as it entered the market the first in late 2015.

 

Rosuzet’s second quarter prescription volume hit 24.1 billion won and grew by 21.6 percent from last year.

 

The rosuvastatin plus ezetimibe combination drug broke the record of the largest prescription volume, among all Korean-developed combination drugs.

 

Hanmi Pharmaceutical was able to enter the market first and won the opportunity to monopolize the market, as the company licensed the use of ezetimibe patent from the patent owner MSD.

 

Rosuzet’s 2017 third quarter prescription volume exceeded 10 billion won, and its consistent growth has never been crippled.

 

Another rosuvastatin plus ezetimibe drug, Yuhan’s Rosuvamibe also grew by 17.1 percent from last year second quarter by generating 13.2 billion won this year.

 

HK inno.N’s Rovazet has generated 6.1 billion won in the second quarter and showed a significant growth of 20.3 percent from last year.

 

Quarterly outpatient prescription volume in Rosuzet and Atozet (Unit: KRW 100 million) Source: UBIST

Moreover, atorvastatin plus ezetimibe drug also had a consistent growth.

 

Currently, MSD’s Atozet is the only atorvastatin plus ezetimibe drug available.

 

In the second quarter, Atozet generated 18.4 billion won and grew by 14.5 percent from last year.

 

In just two years since the second quarter of 2018, its prescription volume grew by 67.4 percent from 11 billion won.

 

MSD has a co-marketing partnership with Chong Kun Dang over Atozet.

 

The combination drug’s overall growth would expand in the future as another atorvastatin plus ezetimibe drug is soon to be launched.

 

In April last year, Chong Kun Dang completed a clinical trial on atorvastatin plus ezetimibe drug ‘CKD-391’ and submitted an item approval application to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS).

 

Currently, about 20 Korean companies have started bioequivalence test for their Atozet generics.

 

On the contrary, the prescription growth in simvastatin plus ezetimibe combination drug has been sluggish.

 

In the second quarter, the combination drug only made 10.4 billion and the prescription volume was brought down by 0.9 percent from last year.

 

The combination seems to have been affected by the rapid growth of other rosuvastatin plus ezetimibe drugs.