Maviret takes up 83% of HCV treatment market share

Q3 outpatient prescription sales marks KRW 10.9 billion, DAA regimen leverages HCV market

Maviret product image

Abbvie broke through the hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment market and dominated 83 percent of oral outpatient prescription market only with its pan-genotype HCV treatment, Maviret, launched last year.

 

Gilead once dominated the market with two items, but their prescription ratio shriveled down to 12 percent.

 

On Oct.

 

30, a pharmaceutical market research agency, UBIST reported this year’s third quarter outpatient prescription sales of eight direct-acting antiviral (DAA) regimen HCV treatments recorded 13.2 billion won, soaring 41.4 percent from last year’s third quarter at 9.3 billion won.

 

Abbvie’s Maviret prescription skyrocketed from the launch in last year September, and brought back up then descending total volume of HCV outpatient prescription market.

 

The market had plummeted to 9.3 billion won in September last year, but turned around with Maviret’s launch.

 

Outpatient prescription sales trend of major hepatitis C virus treatments (Unit: KRW 1 million) Source: UBIST

This year’s third quarter outpatient prescription sales of Maviret reached 10.9 billion won.

 

The sales easily doubled since last year’s fourth quarter with 4.2 billion won.

 

As its accumulated prescription sales this year marked 31.1 billion won, Maviret is projected to make over 40 billion won by the end of the year.

 

Taking up 82.9 percent of the eight DAA regimen treatments’ outpatient prescription sales, Maviret affirmed its unmatched position in the market.

 

Maviret is the first treatment approved in Korea for chronic HCV infection in adults across all major genotypes.

 

It is a pan-genotype ribavirin-free treatment that combines glecaprevir (100mg), an NS3/4A protease inhibitor, and pibrentasvir (40mg), an NS5A inhibitor, dosed once-daily as three oral tablets.

 

Industry insiders view Maviret rapidly took over the market as it shortened drug treatment period by a month, compared to other DAA regimen.

 

The treatment also mainly targets for patients without cirrhosis and who are new to treatment, the condition most of hepatitis C patients have.

 

Recently, Maviret was able to improve consumption convenience as FDA approved of the drug shortening treatment period of chronic hepatitis C patients with cirrhosis and who are new to treatment, from 12 weeks to eight weeks.

 

Sources also report Ministry of Food and Drug Safety’s approval on the expanded indication is imminent as related application has been submitted.

 

However, due to the fact number of HCV patients is limited and the virus has fairly high full recovery rate, it is unclear if Maviret’s golden days would last long.

 

In fact, Maviret’s prescription sales growth has turned from the third quarter.

 

The total prescription soared every quarter since its launch and peaked in the second quarter, but it’s the figure dropped 9.1 percent in just about three months.

 

Meanwhile, a former HCV treatment market leader, Gilead Sciences seems to have lost a big cut from its own market share.

 

Sovaldi marked 18.1 billion won in last year’s first quarter, but its third quarter prescription sales in this year plunged to 4.68 billion won.

 

Two top selling products of Gilead, Sovaldi and Harvoni, made total prescription of 1.5 billion won.

 

The two drugs combined accumulated prescription sales of 5 billion won, merely taking up 11.7 percent of the whole hepatitis C treatment market.

 

BMS’ Daklinza and Sunvepra combined marked outpatient prescription sales of 4.5 billion won in the third quarter, which is about one-tenth of what they had made last year same quarter.

 

Launched around same season in the second quarter of 2017, MSD’s Zepatier and Abbvie’s Viekira and Exviera watched their sales continue dropping after the launch of Maviret and had short period of sales peak.

 

In the third quarter, Zepatier marked prescription sales of 700 million won, whereas prescription sales for Viekira and Exviera were not even counted from last July.

 

Abbvie insider commented, “Demand for Viekira and Exviera has decreased after Maviret was launched.

 

There isn’t any issue with supply from the company”.