Immunotherapies Will Continue to Dominate the Malignant Melanoma Drug Market with Sales of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors Accounting for Majority of Sales in this Drug Class in 2022

BURLINGTON, Mass., Dec. 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that the malignant melanoma therapy market will experience robust annual growth of more than 11 percent from 2012 to 2022 in the world's major pharmaceutical markets (United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom and Japan). Immunotherapies will continue to dominate the malignant melanoma market through 2022. Sales for this drug class will increase dramatically during this period owing primarily to the anticipated launches of the immune checkpoint inhibitors, Bristol-Myers Squibb's nivolumab and Merck's MK-3475, for treatment of unresectable and metastatic melanoma and the anticipated adjuvant line-extension of Bristol-Myers Squibb's Yervoy. In 2022, sales of immunotherapies for melanoma will total more than $2.1 billion with sales of immune checkpoint inhibitors accounting for the vast majority of these sales.

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The Pharmacor report entitled Malignant Melanoma finds that the BRAF/MEK inhibitor drug class will continue to play an important role in treatment of BRAF V600-mutation-positive unresectable and metastatic melanoma and that BRAF/MEK inhibitor combination therapy will become the preferred treatment approach over BRAF and MEK inhibitor monotherapy owing to its anticipated improved efficacy and safety and tolerability compared with monotherapy treatment. By 2022, three BRAF/MEK inhibitor combination therapies will launch, the first of which will be GlaxoSmithKline's Tafinlar/Mekinist, in 2014, in the United States and Europe. All BRAF/MEK inhibitor combination therapies will compete for market share in the unresectable/metastatic BRAF V600-mutation-positive patient population, with sales of this drug class accounting for one-fifth of the total market in 2022.

The report also finds that, despite the anticipated launch of several novel premium-priced therapies during the 2012-2022 forecast period, Yervoy will remain the sales leader through 2022 due to the agent's high price, its anticipated line-extension into the adjuvant setting and its anticipated first-line use in combination with nivolumab for unresectable/metastatic disease.

"When considering the melanoma clinical development pipeline, interviewed thought leaders are most excited about the immune checkpoint inhibitors," said Decision Resources Senior Business Insights Analyst, Karen Pomeranz, Ph.D. "We forecast that nivolumab and MK-3475 will launch for treatment of melanoma in all markets under study, attaining their highest sales in the first-line unresectable/metastatic setting. In 2022, nivolumab and MK-3475 will earn overall major market sales of nearly $1.1 billion."

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