Last year, Tamiflu sales fell by half

The Rx for 37 items of Oseltamivir was cut by half last year

Tamiflu Rx rate ↓58% & generic share rate 70%

Last year, the flu treatment Tamiflu market dropped sharply.

 

The size of the market has shrunk as the number of flu patients has decreased significantly from 2018.

 

The share of generics in the market has been expanding.

 

Outpatient prescription performance of Oseltamivir were down ₩17.2 billion, down 50.4% from last year, according to UBIST, a drug research agency.

 

This is the result of a survey of 37 products with recent prescriptions.

 

Oseltamivir is a drug used to treat flu, and Roche's Tamiflu is the original medicine.

 

Prescriptions for 37 items from 2017 to 2018 rose 103% from ₩17 billion to ₩34.6 billion, but fell back to ₩17.2 billion last year.

 

In the winter of 2018, the flu was a very common epidemic.

 

According to the KCDC(Korea Centers for Disease Control & Prevention), the number of influenza patients per 1,000 outpatients last year were 19.5 at 49 weeks, 28.5 at 50 weeks, 37.8 at 51 weeks, and decreased by more than 30% less than 49.8 at 52 weeks.

 

34.1, 48.7, 71.9, and 73.3 in the week 49-52 of 2018.

 

In the prescriptions for Oseltamivir ingredients, Tamiflu, the original drug, was still ranked first last year.

 

Tamiflu's prescription amount was ₩5.2 billion.

 

Hanmiflu followed with ₩4.1 billion.

 

After that, Comyflu came in third with ₩1.5 billion in earnings.

 

Tamiflu and Hanmiflu, both of which ranked top in prescription performance, also saw a sharp decline.

 

Both original and generic prescriptions declined, but Tamiflu was the largest among the top five.

 

Tamiflu's prescriptions for 2019 decreased 58.4% year-on-year, while Hanmiflu also decreased 54.2%.

 

Kolon's Comyflu decreased 31%, Yuhan's Yuhan N Flu decreased 50.6%, and Arlico's Tamipro decreased 20.8%.

 

In particular, Tamiflu's share in the overall market of Oseltamivir is decreasing.

 

Tamiflu's 2017 market share continued to decline from 51.3% to 36.2% in 2018 and 30.4% in 2019.

 

The share of generics in the Oseltamivir market soared to around 70%.

 

Generics such as Hanmiflu are interpreted as a competitive effect.

 

However, as this winter is not over yet, it is necessary to observe the first quarter 2020 results.

 

In 2018, the most common cases of influenza were in December, while in 2019, the number of patients has increased since the end of December, and the number of patients continues in January.

 

The KCDC announced that the number of suspected influenza patients increased sharply in late December and January this year after the influenza watch warning was issued on last November 15.

 

Last year, the number of suspected influenza patients per 1,000 outpatients fell 53.1 per week, down sharply from last December, but this week increased to 49.1 per week.